Elizabeth sidled up to him, keeping her fierce eyes on Geoffrey all the time. She was utterly cowed and terrified, but she could still look fierce. She took the Heap by the hand and drew him thence still moaning and quite crazed. She led him away to his castle and his wealth. Six months afterwards she came forth with him to marry him, half-witted as he was. A year and eight months afterwards she came out again to bury him, and found herself the richest widow in Wales. They went forth, leaving Geoffrey and Mr. Granger alone. The old man rested his head upon the table and wept bitterly. “Be merciful,” he said, “do not say such words to me. I loved her, indeed I did, but Elizabeth was too much for me, and I am so poor. Oh, if you loved her also, be merciful! I do not reproach you because you loved her, although you had no right to love her. If you had not loved her, and made her love you, all this would never have happened. Why do you say such dreadful things to me, Mr. Bingham?” “I loved her, sir,” answered Geoffrey, humbly enough now that his fury had passed, “because being what she was all who looked on her must love her. There is no woman left like her in the world. But who am I that I should blame you? God forgive us all! I only live henceforth in the hope that I may one day rejoin her where she has gone.” There was a pause. “Mr. Granger,” said Geoffrey presently, “never trouble yourself about money. You were her father; anything you want and what I have is yours. Let us shake hands and say good-bye, and let us never meet again. As I said, God forgive us all!” “Thank you—thank you,” said the old man, looking up through the white hair that fell about his eyes. “It is a strange world and we are all miserable sinners. I hope there is a better somewhere. I’m well-nigh tired of this, especially now that Beatrice has gone. Poor girl, she was a good daughter and a fine woman. Good-bye. Good-bye!” Then Geoffrey went. CHAPTER XXXI. THE DUCHESS’S BALL Geoffrey reached Town a little before eleven o’clock that night—a haunted man—haunted for life by a vision of that face still lovely in death, floating alone upon the deep, and companioned only by the screaming mews—or perchance now sinking or sunk to an unfathomable grave. Well might such a vision haunt a man, the man whom alone of all men those cold lips had kissed, and for whose dear sake this dreadful thing was done. He took a cab directing the driver to go to Bolton Street and to stop at his club as he passed. There might be letters for him there, he thought—something which would distract his mind a little. As it chanced there was a letter, marked “private,” and a telegram; both had been delivered that evening, the porter said, the former about an hour ago by hand. Idly he opened the telegram—it was from his lawyers: “Your cousin, the child George Bingham, is, as we have just heard, dead. Please call on us early to-morrow morning.”