"Do you mean," says the girl, "that I have broken yours? _Yours?_ Have I been so bad as that? Yours? I have been wilful, I know, and troublesome, but troublesome people do not break one's heart. What have I done then that yours should be broken?" She has moved closer to him. Her eyes are gazing with passionate question into his. "Do not think of that," says the professor, unsteadily. "Do not let that trouble you. As I just now told you, I am a poor man, and poor men cannot afford such luxuries as hearts." "Yet poor men have them," says the girl in a little low stifled tone. "And--and girls have them too!" There is a long, long silence. To Curzon it seems as if the whole world has undergone a strange, wild upheaval. What had she meant--what? Her words! Her words meant something, but her looks, her eyes, oh, how much more _they_ meant! And yet to listen to her--to believe--he, her guardian, a poor man, and she an heiress! Oh! no. Impossible. "So much the worse for the poor men," says he deliberately. There is no mistaking his meaning. Perpetua makes a little rapid movement towards him--an almost imperceptible one. _Did_ she raise her hands as if to hold them out to him? If so, it is so slight a gesture as scarcely to be remembered afterwards, and at all events the professor takes no notice of it, presumably, therefore, he does not see it. "It is late," says Perpetua a moment afterwards. "I must go and dress for dinner." _Her_ eyes are down now. She looks pale and shamed. "You have nothing to say, then?" asks the professor, compelling himself to the question. "About what?" "Hardinge." The girl turns a white face to his. "Will you then _compel_ me to marry him?" says she. "Am I"--faintly--"nothing to you? Nothing----" She seems to fade back from him in the growing uncertainty of the light into the shadow of the corner beyond. Curzon makes a step towards her. At this moment the door is thrown suddenly open, and a man--evidently a professional man--advances into the room. "Sir Thaddeus," begins he, in a slow, measured way. The professor stops dead short. Even Perpetua looks amazed. "I regret to be the messenger of bad news, sir," says the solemn man in black. "They told me I should find you here. I have to tell you, Sir Thaddeus, that your brother, the late lamented Sir Hastings is dead." The solemn man spread his hands abroad. CHAPTER XVI. 'Till the secret be secret no more In the light of one hour as it flies, Be the hour as of suns that expire Or suns that rise."