Of one thing, only, was she conscious, and that a sense of weariness--a strong desire to be alone, up stairs, where she was not obliged to answer questions, or listen to loving words, of which she was so unworthy. She was deceiving Richard, who, when his quick ear caught her smothered yawn, as the little clock struck one, bade her leave him, chiding himself for keeping her so long from the rest he knew she needed. "For me, I shall never know fatigue or pain again," he said, as he led her to the door, "but my singing-bird is different--she must sleep. God bless you, darling. You have made the blind man very happy." He kissed her forehead, her lips, her hands, and then released her, standing in the door and listening to her footsteps as they went up the winding stairs and out into the hall beyond--the dark, gloomy hall, where no light was, save a single ray, shining through the keyhole of Victor's door. CHAPTER XXVI. EDITH AND THE WORLD. "Victor is faithful," Edith said, as she saw the light, and fancied that the Frenchman was still up, waiting to assist his master. But not for Richard did Victor keep the watch that night. He would know how long that interview lasted below, and when it was ended he would know its result. What Victor designed he was pretty sure to accomplish, and when, by the voices in the lower hall, he knew that Edith was coming, he stole on tip-toe to the balustrade, and, leaning over, saw the parting at the parlor door, feeling intuitively that Edith's relations to Richard had changed since he last looked upon her. Never was servant more attached to his master than was Victor Dupres to his, and yet he was strongly unwilling that Edith's glorious beauty should be wasted thus. "If she loved him," he said to himself, as, gliding back to his room, he cautiously shut the door, ere Edith reached the first landing. "If she loved him, I would not care. More unsuitable matches than this have ended happily--but she don't. Her whole life is bound with that of another, and she shrinks from Mr. Harrington as she was not wont to do. I saw it in her face, as she turned away from him. There'll be another grave in the Collingwood grounds--another name on the tall monument, 'Edith, wife of Richard Harrington, aged 20.'"