The room was in its usual partially lighted state, with darkness in all the corners, half-seen furniture, and ghostly pictures on the walls. A minute ago the servants had been there in a line kneeling at prayers--dim beings, something between pictures and ghosts. And now they had just stolen out in procession, and Dr Mitford had seated himself at the table for the regulation ten minutes which he spent with his family before retiring for the night. Kate had drawn a low chair close to the table, and was looking up at him with a little quiver of anxiety about her lips and eyes. These two--the old man’s venerable white head throwing reflections from it in the soft lamplight, the young girl all radiant with beauty and feeling--were alone within the circle of light. Outside of it stood two darker shadows, John and his mother. Mrs Mitford was in a black gown, and the bright tints of her pleasant face were neutralised by the failure of light. Two in the brightness and two in the gloom--a curious symbolical arrangement. And behind them all was the great open window, full of darkness, and the garden with all its unseen sweetness outside. Dr Mitford was the only unconscious member of this curious party. He had no suspicion and no alarm. He stretched his legs, which were not long, out comfortably before him, and leant back composedly, now on the elbows, now on the back, of his chair. “Well, Miss Kate, and what have you been doing with yourself all the evening?” he said, in his blissful ignorance. The other three gave a simultaneous gasp. What would he think when he heard? This thought, however, pressed hardest upon John. His mind was laden with a secret which as yet nobody divined, and speech almost forsook him when he had most need of it. Neither Kate nor his mother could see how pale he grew, and even if there had been light enough, John was not a handsome pink-and-white youth upon whom a sudden pallor shows. He might have shirked it even now, or left it to his mother, or chosen a more convenient moment. But he was uncompromising in his sense of necessities, and now was the moment at which it must be done. He went round quickly to his father’s right hand-- “Father,” he said, “I have got something to tell you. I have done what perhaps was not prudent, but I trust you will not think it was not honourable. I have fallen in love with Kate.” “God bless my soul!” said Dr Mitford, instantly abandoning his comfortable attitude, and sitting straight up in his bewilderment. He was so startled that he looked from one to another, and finally turned to his wife, as a man does who has referred every blunder and surprise of a lifetime to her for explanation. It was an appealing half-reproachful glance. Here was something which no doubt she could have prevented or staved off from him. “My dear, what is the meaning of this?” he said.