But Durant did not share in that thrill. It affected him only with a contrary touch of despondency. Lucy’s fright lest he should go on to tell her who it was who had pre-occupied his imagination (could she entertain any doubt who it was?) reflected itself in his melancholy sense that he dared not tell her any more. He dared not because he was poor, he who, even if he had been rich, would not have been thought her equal by anyone belonging to her; and because he was her father’s guest, and incapable of betraying his hospitality by a word to his daughter which Sir John would not have permitted. Thus that suggestion of self-disclosure ended in a blank silence which neither would break. He, too, quickened his steps to keep up with her, and in a few minutes they reached the house, which rayed out light into the darkness from the open door and windows. It seemed all bright, all open, full of hospitable warmth and radiance. When Durant had come here before, he had come with Arthur, and there had been a rush of mother and sister to the door to meet the heir of everything, the first thought and hope of all within these walls. Durant had been half-saddened many a time by that warm and exuberant welcome which Arthur always received. He himself had been received kindly too, but with what a difference! and as there was no particular enthusiasm about him in his own home, notwithstanding the fact that his family were indebted to him for everything, he had never been able to divest himself of a certain envy for Arthur. But he was a thousand times more saddened now to go up the great steps into the hall, and see no mother hurrying out to receive her son, no Arthur coming with cheerful outcry, nothing but himself stealing in softly, half ashamed of being there without Arthur, half afraid to look at Lucy, who must feel it too, he felt. He did not know how to go on and meet Lady Curtis’s eyes. He felt sure they must meet him with a reproach. “Where is Arthur?” he felt the very house say to him; and almost wished that he had been guilty, that he could have taken their reproaches to himself, and answered for his friend’s sake, “It is my fault.” He paused in the hall, and looked round wistfully at Lucy. Her eyes were wet, her lips faltering. She held out that hand to him. “I know,” she said; “but when we have got over the first, it will be almost as if he had come too.”