Neil entered slowly, and the door was closed behind him, as he went on across the wide, dim room to where a fire glowed. His eyes were cast down, and the place was so feebly lit by the shaded lamps and a pair of wax candles that he had reached the middle before he became aware that a figure in black had risen from a chair by the fire and was standing supporting itself by one hand resting upon the great marble mantelpiece. Neil stopped short, with his heart beating violently. Then, after taking a couple of steps forward with outstretched hands, he checked himself again. "You here?" he cried hoarsely; and he crossed to the other side of the fireplace. "Sir Denton did not tell me. I did not know." "I have been here more than an hour," was said in a low voice which trembled slightly. There was a pause, during which Neil fought hard with the feeling--half indignation that he should have been forced into such a situation--half despair. "You have left my father, then," he said at last, in an unnaturally calm voice. "Yes: my work was ended. There was no need for me to stay." Again there was a pause which neither seemed to possess the power to break, and the indignant feeling rose hotter in Neil's breast. For a moment he felt that he must turn and quit the room, but the anger passed off, and he stood firm, grasping the edge of the mantelpiece, and mentally calling himself coward and utterly wanting in nerve. "My brother's betrothed," he muttered; "my brother's betrothed!" and he tried to picture her before him as something holy--as the woman who was soon to occupy the position of sister, with all that had passed between them forgotten--dead forever. And that terrible silence continued till there was the sound of a carriage approaching, reaching the house, and causing a faint rattling of one of the windows, after which it passed on with a strange, hollow, metallic sound, which died away gradually, when the silence seemed to have grown ten times more painful, and the failing fire fell together with a musical tinkle. Then a few glowing cinders dropped through the grating, and as Neil watched them where they lay on the grey hearth, he saw them gradually turn black, and compared them to the passion in his breast. "Like the glowing ashes of my poor love," he thought, as the painful silence continued, for still neither felt that it was possible to speak. "If Sir Denton would only come and end this madness!" thought Elisia. "If this agony would only end, I could go back to my poor sufferers--and oblivion." The clock on the mantel suddenly gave one stroke to indicate the half hour, and the clear, sharp ring of its silvery toned bell vibrated through the room, its tones seeming as if they would never cease. Then all was silence once again, till, making an effort, the trembling woman spoke in a low, pained voice, which she strove hard to render firm: "Sir Denton tells me, Mr Elthorne--"