Instead of approaching the group by the fireplace, Leonard turned and left the room, leaving Mr. Hamleigh under the necessity of following him. "Good-night," he said, shaking hands with Christabel. "I shall not say good-bye till to-morrow. I suppose I shall not have to leave Mount Royal till eleven o'clock." "I think not." "Good-night, Miss Bridgeman. I shall never forget how kind you have been to me." She looked at him earnestly, but made no reply, and in the next instant he was gone. "What can have happened?" asked Christabel anxiously. "I am sure there is something wrong. Leonard's manner was so strange." "Perhaps he and his dear friends have been quarrelling," Jessie answered, carelessly. "I believe Captain Vandeleur breaks out into vindictive language, sometimes, after he has taken a little too much wine: Mop told me as much in her amiable candour. And I know the Captain's glass was filled very often at dinner, for I had the honour of sitting next him." "I hope there is nothing really wrong," said Christabel; but she could not get rid of the sense of uneasiness to which Leonard's strange manner had given rise. She went to her boy's nursery, as she did every night, before going to bed, and said her prayers beside his pillow. She had begun this one night when the child was ill, and had never missed a night since. That quiet recess in which the little one's cot stood was her oratory. Here, in the silence, broken only by the ticking of the clock or the fall of a cinder on the hearth, while the nurse slept near at hand, the mother prayed; and her prayers seemed to her sweeter and more efficacious here than in any other place. So soon as those childish lips could speak it would be her delight to teach her son to pray; and, in the meantime, her supplications went up to Heaven for him, from a heart that overflowed with motherly love. There had been one dismal interval of her life when she had loved no one--having really no one to love--secretly loathing her husband--not daring even to remember that other, once so fondly loved--and then, when her desolate heart seemed walled round with an icy barrier that divided it from all human feeling, God had given her this child, and lo! the ice had melted, and her re-awakened soul had kindled and glowed with warmth and gladness. It was not in Christabel's nature to love many things, or many people: rather was it natural to her to love one person intensely, as she had loved her adopted mother in her girlhood, as she had loved Angus Hamleigh in the bloom of her womanhood, as she loved her boy now. She was leaving the child's room, after prayers and meditations that had been somewhat longer than usual, when she heard voices, and saw Mr. Tregonell and Mr. Hamleigh by the door of the room occupied by the latter, which was at the further end of the gallery. "You understand my plan?" said Leonard. "Perfectly." "It prevents all trouble, don't you see."