Before Clare could speak, Edgar had taken back the papers from her. “That means,” he said, almost gaily, with a laugh which sounded strange to the excited company, “that they have come back to me. Clare has had enough of this. It is no matter of romantic judgment, but one of evidence merely. Mr. Fielding, will you take my sister away? Yes, I will say my sister still. She does not give me up, and I can’t give her up. Arden is little in comparison. Clare, if you could give me a kingdom, you could not do more for me than you have done to-night. Go with Mr. Fielding now----” She rose up, obeying him mechanically, at once. “Where?” she said. “Edgar, tell me. Out of Arden? If it is no longer yours, it is no longer mine.” “Hush, dear,” he said, soothing her as if she had been a child--“hush, hush. There is no cause for any violent change. Your kinsman is not likely to be hard upon either me or you.” “He put the matter into my hands,” she cried, suddenly, with a sob. “O Edgar, listen! Let us go away at once. We must do justice--justice. Let us go and hide ourselves at the end of the world--for it cannot be yours, it is his.” She stumbled as she spoke, not fainting, but overcome by sudden darkness, bewilderment, failure of all physical power. The strain had been too much for Clare. They carried her out, and laid her on the sofa in the quiet, silent room close by, where no excitement was. How strange to go out into the placid house, to see the placid servants carrying in trays with tea, putting in order the merest trifles! The world all around was unconscious of what was passing--unconscious even under the same roof--how much less in the still indifferent universe outside. Edgar laughed, as he went to the great open door, and looked out upon the peaceful stars. “What a fuss we are making about it!” he said to his supplanter, whose mind was incapable of any such reflection; “and how little it matters after all!” “Are you mad, or are you a fool?” cried Arthur Arden under his breath. To him it mattered more than anything else in heaven or earth. The man who was losing everything might console himself that the big world had greater affairs in hand--but to the man who was gaining Arden it was more than all the world--and perhaps it was natural that it should be so.