It was a long business to get all the sympathizing friends away, and to thank and shake hands with the distant hereditary acquaintances who once more had come so far to do honour to the Heriots. The house was in a curious excitement during this interval. All round Pitcomlie many carriages were waiting, and profuse hospitality was being dispensed by Mrs. Simpson and her maids in the servants’ hall amid gossip, melancholy but consolatory. Mr. Charles was doing his duty manfully in the dining-room, administering the excellent sherry, and making such serious remarks now and then as did not misbecome a mourner. Marjory, with Milly at her feet, and Fanshawe, bearing her most sympathetic company, was in the drawing-room, where the shutters were still closed, letting in mournful lines of light through their interstices upon the group. She had felt herself “obliged” last night to tell him about Isabell. She was glad to feel herself obliged to do so, for her heart was aching with a desire for counsel and sympathy; and Fanshawe had taken her confidence very differently from Mr. Charles’s mode of taking it. He had been interested and touched by the letter. He had even suggested at once that this was what poor Tom had intended to speak of; and he agreed with Marjory that the visitor who had so totally declined to tell who she was, or why she came, must have been somehow connected with the unknown Isabell. The secret, which was now between them, added another delicate bond to their friendship. He sat beside her now, talking it all over; suggesting, now one way, now another, of finding out who and where Isabell was. Tom had never mentioned such a subject to him-- “Which makes me,” said Fanshawe, feeling abashed even in the gloom, “have all the more confidence that you are right, Miss Heriot. Had it been a--nothing, a--a mere levity--I don’t know what words to use--he would have spoken of it; but not a serious and honourable love.” “Indeed, I am sure you do yourself injustice,” said Marjory, even in her languor of grief, discovering, with surprise, that she was capable of a blush. “No,” he said, humbly; “men are ashamed of what is good oftener than of what is evil.” They were speaking low, that Milly might not share any more of the secret than was inevitable, a precaution which was vain. Milly took in every word, along with the gloom of the room and the lines of strange, pale eerie light, and the heavy, sad, and painful excitement of the moment. The scene and the story never went out of her mind; but it did not make her much wiser.