Beaufort rose with a desperate effort; he moved to the bureau. Fanny's heart was on her lips;--of this long conference she had understood only the one broad point on which Lilburne had insisted with an emphasis that could have enlightened an infant; and he looked on Beaufort as an infant then--_On that paper rested Philip Vaudemont's fate--happiness if saved, ruin if destroyed; Philip--her Philip!_ And Philip himself had said to her once--when had she ever forgotten his words? and now how those words flashed across her--Philip himself had said to her once, "Upon a scrap of paper, if I could but find it, may depend my whole fortune, my whole happiness, all that I care for in life."--Robert Beaufort moved to the bureau--he seized the document--he looked over it again, hurriedly, and ere Lilburne, who by no means wished to have it destroyed in his own presence, was aware of his intention--he hastened with tottering steps to the hearth-averted his eyes, and cast it on the fire. At that instant something white--he scarce knew what, it seemed to him as a spirit, as a ghost--darted by him, and snatched the paper, as yet uninjured, from the embers! There was a pause for the hundredth part of a moment:--a gurgling sound of astonishment and horror from Beaufort--an exclamation from Lilburne--a laugh from Fanny, as, her eyes flashing light, with a proud dilation of stature, with the paper clasped tightly to her bosom, she turned her looks of triumph from one to the other. The two men were both too amazed, at the instant, for rapid measures. But Lilburne, recovering himself first, hastened to her; she eluded his grasp--she made towards the door to the passage; when Lilburne, seriously alarmed, seized her arm;-- "Foolish child!--give me that paper!" "Never but with my life!" And Fanny's cry for help rang through the house. "Then--" the speech died on his lips, for at that instant a rapid stride was heard without--a momentary scuffle--voices in altercation;--the door gave way as if a battering ram had forced it;--not so much thrown forward as actually hurled into the room, the body of Dykeman fell heavily, like a dead man's, at the very feet of Lord Lilburne--and Philip Vaudemont stood in the doorway! The grasp of Lilburne on Fanny's arm relaxed, and the girl, with one bound, sprung to Philip's breast. "Here, here!" she cried, "take it-- take it!" and she thrust the paper into his hand. "Don't let them have it--read it--see it--never mind me!" But Philip, though his hand unconsciously closed on the precious document, did mind Fanny; and in that moment her cause was the only one in the world to him.