All at once Stephen glanced at Elizabeth. He had found her in the hall with Edmonson. Had she any hand in this unveiling of an ancestral face? He thought of the possibility of shame that might follow--of shame, because he remembered the talk of the two men in the woods and the old butler's look at Edmonson that very morning. If this triumphant fellow had any such thing to tell, did she already know it? Was she upon such terms of intimacy with him as this? She stood apart, still near the doorway where Edmonson had left her. None of the curiosity expressed everywhere else was in her face. She seemed scarcely listening; she looked as if she were far away and the people about her and the words they were saying belonged to a different world. But it was not so, for it was the consciousness that she was in the world about her and bound to it that gave her the expression of struggle. Chains held her when she wanted to be free. She was one too many here. Before her was Archdale's face as he had looked at Katie, and between these two a stupid woman whom she had no patience with, whom she hated--herself. And now there might be coming an added pain that she had brought. She did not care especially for Archdale's pain, except that it was of her bringing. But Edmonson went on talking, and Stephen, like the others, forgot everything in listening. He saw his father's brows contract, and knew that he was biting his under lip hard, as he did when he was much troubled. Edmonson still went on with his story. He certainly made it interesting. Stephen's secret uneasiness passed into surprise, distrust, conviction, inward disturbance as he stood with his haughty air unchanged. CHAPTER XIX. RANKLING ARROWS. Elizabeth was alone at last, that is, as much as a thought pursuing like a personality lets one be alone. When she crossed her room in the silence it was a relief to hear no voices, not to be obliged to answer when she had not listened and was afraid lest she should not answer rightly. Yet the events of the last few hours, the stray words as they seemed to her that she had heard, the faces that had been before her kept moving on before her now and repeating themselves faintly for a little time, just as one whose head is throbbing with some continued sound still hears it through all his pulses, even when he has gone out of reach of the reality. She seemed to be driving home with Lady Dacre's face full of tenderness opposite her. The sympathy had been almost too much for Elizabeth, her eyes had not met the compassionate glances. Sir Temple had conversed for three; he had been very kind, too, but the kindness hurt her, for she knew they pitied her.