"Yes!" cried Vincent, with passion, "he is _her_ brother." When he had said the words, the young man groaned aloud. Partly he forgot that this man, who looked upon him with so much curiosity, was the man who had brought tears and trembling to Her; partly he remembered it, and forgot his jealousy for the moment in a bitter sense of fellow-feeling. In his heart he could see her, waving her hand to him out of her passing carriage, with that smile for which he would have risked his life. Oh, hideous fate! it was _her_ brother whom he was bound to pursue to the end of the world. He buried his face in his hands, in a momentary madness of anguish and passion. Susan floated away like a mist from that burning personal horizon. The love and the despair were too much for Vincent. The hope that had always been impossible was frantic now. When he recovered himself, the stranger whom he had thus unawares taken into his confidence was regarding him haughtily from the other side of the table, with a fiery light in his thoughtful eyes. Suspicion, jealousy, resentment, had begun to sparkle in those orbs, which in repose looked so far away and lay so calm. Mr. Fordham measured the haggard and worn-out young man with a look of rising dislike and animosity. He was at least ten years older than the young Nonconformist, who stood there in his wretchedness and exhaustion entirely at disadvantage, looking, in his half-clerical dress, which he had not changed for four-and-twenty hours, as different as can be conceived from the scrupulously dressed gentleman in his easy morning habiliments, which would not have been out of place in the rudest scene, yet spoke of personal nicety and high-breeding in every easy fold. Vincent himself felt the contrast with an instant flush of answering jealousy and passion. For a moment the two glanced at each other, conscious rivals, though not a word of explanation had been spoken. It was Mr. Fordham who spoke first, and in a somewhat hasty and imperious tone. "You spoke of a lady--Lady Western, I think. As it was you yourself who sought this interview, I may be pardoned if I stumble on a painful subject," he said, with some bitterness. "I presume you know that lady by your tone--was it she who sent you to me? No? Then I confess your appeal to a total stranger seems to me singular, to say the least of it. Where is your proof that Colonel Mildmay has used my name?" "Proof is unnecessary," said Vincent, firing with kindred resentment; "I have told you the fact, but I do not press my appeal, though it was made to your honour. Pardon me for intruding on you so long. I have now no time to lose."