Dinner was half over that day before Henry came in; his face was flushed, and his brow clouded. He answered roughly and abruptly his sister's questions as to the cause of his lateness; drank a great deal of wine, and maintained a gloomy and sullen silence. Partly from a kind of utter discouragement, partly from the fear of giving pain to Alice, instead of eagerly watching for an opportunity of speaking to him after dinner, and learning the result of his interview with Harding, I avoided Henry, and even left the drawing-room; and going up to my own turret sitting-room, I raked up the embers of the fire, and sat before it in gloomy contemplation. At the end of about half an hour, Henry burst into the room, and, as I looked at him in astonishment, he exclaimed bitterly, "Pray be so good as to dispense with forms for once, and receive me graciously if you can, for my patience is exhausted, and I would recommend you not to trifle with me. Do you imagine," he continued, with increasing violence, "that I am to submit to the most painful and humiliating interviews, and at my return to be treated as a footman whom you have sent on an errand? If you hate me, conceal it at least. Act the hypocrite once more, and to good purpose, for I am weary of the part you play, and make me play." "Leave me, leave me this moment; and O that I might never set eyes on you again." "So you said once before; and did I not tell you then, that all was not over between us? Are you not bound to me by a tie so powerful that nothing can sever it? Has not your heart softened to me in spite of all I have ever done or said to make you hate me? And is it not because you know, you feel, that, whatever I may do and say in ungovernable anger, I love you ardently, passionately, unspeakably--" "For God's sake, for mercy's sake, go! that is Edward's voice in the hall--he is coming." Henry rushed to the door and locked it; at the same moment the handle was seized and turned outside. I grew very pale, but sprang forward to open it; before I had reached it, Henry had seized my hands, and in a whisper he said, "As you value your future peace, do not open it." "I would die at his feet rather than not let him in." I disengaged myself from Henry's grasp, and flung open the door; but whoever had been there was gone, and I heard the one that led into the hall slammed with violence. I returned into the room burning with shame and indignation; and throwing myself down on the chair before the fire, I hid my face in my hands and refused to listen to Henry. "Calm yourself, I entreat you," said Henry; "after this it will not do to appear again with red and swollen eyes. Besides, I must speak to you--I must tell you about Harding."