At tea, Rees was preternaturally gay, Sep unusually silent. Soon afterwards, on pretence of going to Mrs. Kemp’s, they left the drawing-room; and taking with them the spade, the rope, and the lantern, slipped through a little door in the wall at the bottom of the garden, and made for the ruins. It was unusually dark, for the grey clouds were thick in the sky and the rain was still falling. Outside the castle walls, under the trees on the west side, Amos Goodhare, a gaunt figure shivering in the damp, was waiting. Very few words were exchanged between them, for their plan of action was already settled. Then Rees left the other two, and going round to the castle gates, pulled the bell which summoned the custodian. Mrs. Crow was rather cross, not having expected to be disturbed so late. “Really, Master Rees,” she said, using, as most people did, his boyish name, “I can’t think what you’re up to, a-wandering about them ruins at all hours of the day and night. And if it’s to meet Lady Marion, who came in here after you last night, I can tell you I’ll not be a party to it, that I won’t.” “My dear old soul,” said Rees, throwing his arm round her in his fascinatingly affectionate way, “there’s nothing I want less than to have Lady Marion always at my heels. So, if she turns up while I’m inside, you just tell her I’m not there. Why, I come here so that I may study in peace away from the girls, they pester one so.” And, with a light air of all-conqueror, he tossed up into the air a book which he had taken care to bring as evidence of his veracity. Mrs. Crow shook her head and began to chuckle indulgently. “Oh, what a lad you are, with your carneying ways. I suppose it’s poor Miss Deborah you mean, since everybody knows she’s dying for ye. Well, well, some hearts are made to be broken, and others made to break them, I suppose. But it’s a pity, for sure, that you don’t make it up together, for you’d make a handsome couple!” Rees laughed, and passed in not ill-pleased. His was not a nature with any great depth of passion to bestow on any woman. But he knew that Deborah was the handsomest and altogether the nicest girl in the neighborhood. So it pleased him to hear that she was in love with him. In his way, too, he loved her, and would most probably have proposed to her on his father’s death but for the influences which had lately been brought to bear upon him. At present, however, no woman held any but the most insignificant place in his heart or mind, and as he hurried to the vaulted chamber all thought of Deborah went out of his head.