"It was a low--a mean revenge," says Marcia, through her teeth, her eyes aflame, her lips colorless; "one worthy of you. I understand you, sir; but do not for an instant think you have crushed _me_." Raising her head haughtily, she sweeps past him back to her original seat. Molly has risen to her feet. She is very pale and faint; her eyes, large and terrified, like a fawn's, are fixed, oddly enough, upon Philip. The news has been too sudden, too unexpected, to cause her even the smallest joy as yet. On the contrary, she knows only pity for him who, but a few minutes before, she was reviling in her thoughts. Perhaps the sweetness of her sympathy is the one thing that could have consoled Philip just then. "'Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness,'" he says, with a little sneering laugh, shrugging his shoulders. Then, rousing himself, he draws a long breath, and goes straight up to Molly. "Permit me to congratulate you," he says, with wonderful grace, considering all things. He is standing before her, with his handsome head well up, a certain pride of birth about him, strong enough to carry him successfully through this great and lasting disaster. "It is, after all, only natural that of the three you should inherit. Surprise should lie in the fact that never did such a possibility occur to us. We might have known that even our grandfather's worn and stony heart could not be proof against such grace and sweetness as yours." He bows over her hand courteously, and, turning away, walks back again to the window, standing with his face hidden from them all. Never has he appeared to such advantage. Never has he been so thoroughly liked as at this moment. Molly moves as though she would go to him; but Cecil, laying her hand upon her arm, wisely restrains her. What can be said to comfort him, who has lost home, and love, and all? "It is all a mistake; it cannot be true," says Molly, piteously. "It is a mistake." She looks appealingly at Cecil, who, wise woman that she is, only presses her arm again meaningly, and keeps a discreet silence. To express her joy at the turn events have taken at this time would be gross; though not to express it goes hard with Cecil. She contents herself with glancing expressively at Sir Penthony every now and then, who is standing at the other end of the room. "I also congratulate you," says Luttrell, coming forward, and speaking for the first time. He is not nearly so composed as Shadwell, and his voice has a strange and stilted sound. He speaks so that Molly and Cecil alone can hear him, delicacy forbidding any open expression of pleasure. "With all my heart," he adds; but his tone is strange. The whole speech is evidently a lie. His eyes meet hers with an expression in them she has never seen there before,--so carefully cold it is, so studiously unloving.