"Sit down, Greta,", she whispered. "How strange you should have come to this house! But then everything is strange to-day----" But here she stopped confusedly, as she remembered Mr. Gaythorne's injunction. "Why is it strange?" asked Greta, innocently. "There is someone seriously ill here, is there not? But your servant did not tell me the name. How pale and tired you look, Mrs. Luttrell! I suppose it is some friend of yours who is ill?" She glanced at Olivia questioningly, but she only nodded in answer. "Yes; it was a sudden attack--I think it must have been a stroke. Oh, Greta, what is it?"--for Miss Williams had suddenly risen from her seat with a startled exclamation and was gazing with wide, frightened eyes and parted lips into the shadowy corner behind her. The next moment Robert Barton came forward into the firelight, with his pale face and fair, dishevelled hair. He looked almost like a ghost of himself, but Greta, with a little cry, held out her hand to him. "Alwyn, it is you; but how you startled me! Why did you stand there in that silent, ghostly fashion?" But as he only looked at her in a dazed way, and made no answer, she turned to Olivia. "Mrs. Luttrell," she said, piteously, "what does it all mean? Why does he not speak to me, and we are such old friends? Is he ill? He looks dreadful. I should hardly have known him--and yet--and yet--it must be Alwyn." "Yes, I am Alwyn," returned the young man, in a hollow voice. "But you must not touch me, Greta. I am not worthy to take your hand. I have killed my father!" CHAPTER XV. "THEY WERE BOTH TO BLAME." "It befits a son to be dutiful to his father."--_Plautus_. As Alwyn uttered these despairing words Greta shrank back in alarm, but Olivia, with a reassuring smile, put her hand gently on his arm. "Do not talk so wildly, Mr. Alwyn," she said, soothingly; "you are frightening poor Miss Williams. How can you have killed your father when he is not dead? My husband has only just left me. He seems hopeful about him; he thinks consciousness is returning; but he must have perfect quiet. Even our voices may disturb him--that is why I must beg you to come back with me at once." "You are not deceiving me, Mrs. Luttrell?" returned Alwyn, suspiciously. "You are sure that he is not dead?" "Quite sure," she returned, quietly; and then again Greta put out her hand. "You will come with us, will you not, Alwyn?" she said, with sisterly tenderness; "there is so much that I have to hear and that you must tell me, and we must not talk here. To think that we should have met like this, by accident--if there be such a thing as accident in this life of ours. But no; it was Providence that brought me to this house." And as Olivia followed them down the dark shrubbery she could hear her quiet tones still talking, as though to a younger brother.