“I wonder what he wants of her?” she continued to herself as Mildred ran down stairs. “I mean to hurry and see,” and she so quickened her movements that scarcely ten minutes had elapsed ere her trunk was ready, and she had started in quest of Mildred. “Go back, you filigree. You ain’t wanted there;” and the Judge, who kept guard in the hall below, interposed his cane between her and the door of the drawing-room, where Lawrence and Mildred sat together, his arm round her waist, her hand in his own, and her eyes downcast, but shining like stars beneath their long-fringed lashes. In answer to her question, “What do you want of me?” the Judge had pointed to the drawing-room, and said: “The one who wants you is in there.” “Who can it be?” she thought, tripping through the hall, and crossing the threshold of the door, where she stopped suddenly, while an undefinable sensation swept over her, for at the farthest extremity of the room, and directly beneath the portrait of Richard Howell, Lawrence stood waiting for her. “Did you wish to speak with me, Mr. Thornton? Do you want me?” she asked, when a little recovered from her astonishment. “Yes, Milly, yes,” Lawrence answered impetuously, “I want you for life,—want you forever,” and advancing toward her, he wound his arm about her and led her back to the sofa, where she sank down utterly bewildered, and feeling as if she were laboring under some hallucination. Could it be herself he wanted? Wasn’t it Lilian, who was even now puzzling her brain how “to lead the conversation” so as to produce a scene similar to this, save that she and not Mildred would be one of the actors? “Dear Mildred,” the voice at her side began, and then she knew it was not Lilian he meant. She could not mistake her own name, and she listened breathlessly while he told her of the love conceived more than two years before, when she was a merry, hoydenish school-girl of fifteen, and had spent a few days at his father’s house. “It has always been my father’s wish,” he said, “that I must marry Lilian, and until quite recently I have myself fostered the belief that I should some time do so, even though I knew I could be happier with you; but, Milly,—Lilian can never be my wife.” “Oh, Lawrence, Lawrence, Lawrence!” and spite of the Judge’s cane,—spite of the Judge’s boot,—spite of the Judge’s burly figure, planted in the doorway to impede her ingress, Lilian Veille rushed headlong into the middle of the room, where she stood a moment, wringing her hands in mute despair, and then fell or rather crouched upon the floor, still crying: “Oh, Lawrence, Lawrence.” Wholly blinded by her sister, she had as much expected to be the future wife of Lawrence Thornton as to see the next day’s sun, and had never thought it possible for him to choose another, so when she saw his position with Mildred and heard the words: “Lilian can never be my wife,” the shock was overwhelming, and she sank upon the carpet, helpless, sick and fainting.