It was so strange, so incomprehensible. A feeling of acute pain came to him. At the sight of Margery his love rose up again in all its vigor, full of bitterness and despair, however, for she was a wife. He sat on in the chill night hours, his brain full of disturbing thought. The mystery, the suddenness of the whole thing, seemed to stun him, to crush his very being. During the whole evening he had sat listening to his host’s voice, and answering in monosyllables. Margery did not appear; of that he was only too distinctly conscious. The rest was a blank. And now he was alone, bewildered, tormented by pain, despair, love. His journey was ended before it had commenced, for he had found Sir Douglas Gerant’s daughter, found the owner of Beecham Park. In the morning he must unfold his tale, and then--go from her forever. He rose and, approaching the window, opened it. How came Margery hither? he asked himself. What strange fate had brought him to her at that very moment? What story would he hear on the morrow? Had he wronged--doubted his love? A cold shudder seized him at the very thought. With an effort he put it from him. What could Margery say in self-defense? She had deceived--cruelly deceived him. Whatever the cause, he could not forget that. What explanation would she give him? Perhaps none; and he had no right to demand any. The difficulties of the situation seemed to become greater and greater as he pondered it in his mind. He moved from the window, and walked slowly up and down the room. Margery, the girl he had loved, trusted, revered, the girl he was about to seek in a far-distant clime, was under the same roof with him at that very instant, the wife of his host, the Earl of Court. It was inexplicable. His mind could find no solution to the problem; he could but wait for morning light. Stuart was not the only one who was awake and disturbed that night. Margery, clad in a silk dressing-gown as white as her cheeks, was pacing the floor of her chamber. She had pleaded illness, and begged to be left with Pauline; and, once alone, she sent her maid into the dressing-room and fought the battle with herself in solitude. If sorrow, despair, anguish, had come to her before, they visited her now with redoubled force. It seemed to her the very irony of fate, a mockery of her good intentions, that she should be so tried at such a moment--a moment when she had thought herself a conqueror over her weakness. Of what avail had been her struggles, her earnest prayers, her resolutions? The sight of Stuart’s grave, handsome face, the intoxication of his presence, had left her weak; the memory of his insults, his deceit, had banished everything but the knowledge that she loved him still. She longed for the weary night to pass, yet dreaded the coming of morning, when she must meet him, speak to him, when his every word would be as a dagger thrust into her heart.