She looked at the Sèvres timepiece on the mantelshelf. How slowly the hands moved! She almost thought they must have stopped, and went across to listen for the beat of the pendulum. Yes, the clock was going regularly enough: it was she whose life went so fast. No swing of the pendulum could keep pace with that passionate heart of hers. The sun was down; the western sky had reddened to blood colour. Hark! there was a step on the stairs. His, of course. She stood with throbbing heart, ready to sink into his arms. No, it was not his step. It was firm, and light, and quick--a young man's step, but not _his_. There was no melody she had known all her life more familiar to her ear than Lavendale's footstep. She could not be mistaken in that. A footman opened the door and announced Mr. Durnford. Lady Judith turned with an air of haughty interrogation. Her frown and the angry flash from her dark eyes asked plainly by what right he approached her at such an hour. And then she remembered the closeness of the friendship between Durnford and Lavendale, and her heart sank with a sudden fear. "Is his lordship ill?" she asked eagerly, as if the world knew but one lordship. "No, madam; but I come from him. I am the bearer of a letter." He took a sealed letter from his breast-pocket and handed it to her. She snatched it from him, and turned to the window, where there was just light enough to read it, her bosom heaving, her cheeks whitening to the hue of her powdered hair. The letter was all tenderness: a letter of renunciation and farewell, eloquent with saddest feeling: a letter which to a less imperious nature might have been salvation. But Judith wanted to go to perdition her own way; and on a woman bent upon losing her soul for her lover, all unselfish reasoning must needs be wasted. "Have _I_ counted the cost?" she asked herself, "and if not I, why should he be so punctilious? Lavendale! Lavendale, whose very name is a synonym for dissipation and debauchery--for _him_ to turn mentor and lecture me! O, it is too much!" and then, turning fiercely upon Durnford, she exclaimed, "This is your work, sir." "Indeed, no, madam."