"No, no, my dear boy; forgive me. And I ought not to have torn open your wound again by my thoughtless question." "I will confide in you now, Sir Denton." "No, no, my dear boy. Leave it all unsaid." "No; there is no time like the present. You ought to know, and I can never revive the subject again. Possibly, in the future, the opportunity may never come." "What do you mean?" "I am not blind to the risk of going to such a place. I don't suppose I shall return." "My dear boy, if you are going to take that morbid view of the task," cried Sir Denton, "you shall not go. But pish! you are low-spirited now from the refusal you have had. Work, man, work. _Au revoir_." "Sir Denton," said Neil gravely, "you must know the truth now. In ignorance of her early life, I loved Nurse Elisia very dearly." "Then, my dear boy--" cried the old man excitedly. "Stop, sir; you were mistaken. I asked her to be my wife." "Mistaken? She refused you? Impossible!" "No, sir; it is the simple fact." "But--you hinted, or I said--dear me, how confused I am--that the lady you proposed to, refused you--a prior attachment--another gentleman?" "Yes; my own brother." Sir Denton stood gazing in Neil's face for some moments before he spoke again, and then in a weary, helpless way he said sadly: "And I have been studying human nature all through my long life, to find myself an ignorant pretender after all. Let me go and think. Refused you?--your brother? Ah, well--till to-night, my dear boy--and after all I thought--There, there, it is only the body I have been studying, not the soul. Bless my heart!" he muttered, as he went down to his carriage: "and I felt so sure. Ah, dear me--dear me! it takes a cleverer man than I to read a woman through and through." CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. THE CLOUDS DISPELLED. Neil Elthorne was more himself as a cab set him down at Sir Denton Hayle's that evening, where the quiet, old-fashioned butler received him in a solemn, old-fashioned way, and ushered him at once into his master's study, for, though there was a fire and lights in the great first-floor drawing room, they were only for form's sake, when the old surgeon had company; and upon occasions like the present it was almost certain not to be used. Sir Denton received his pupil as warmly as if he had been his son, and they were soon after seated face to face in the gloomy dining room, where the table was reduced to the smallest proportions to which it could be screwed. It was a thoroughly good, old-fashioned dinner, at which the butler handed very old East India sherry, which was hardly touched; and, after clearing the cloth, left on the nearly black, highly polished table, three massive silver decanter stands, in which glowed, like liquid gems, port, claret, and burgundy.