As Chudleigh Wilmot stopped speaking, he bent over the back of the chair by which he had been standing during the latter part of his speech, and looked long and earnestly at Ronald. It was very seldom that Captain Kilsyth dropped his eyes before anyone's gaze; but on this occasion he passed his hand hastily across them, and kept them for some minutes fixed upon the ground. A very hard struggle was going on in Ronald Kilsyth's mind. He was firmly persuaded that the decision he had originally taken, and which he had come to Charles-street for the purpose of insisting on with Wilmot, was the right one. And yet Wilmot's story, in itself so touching, had been so plainly and earnestly told, there was such evident honesty and candour in the man, that Ronald's heart ached to be compelled to destroy the hopes which he felt certain that his companion had recently cherished. Moreover, in saying that in considering Madeleine's future, his aspirations for her marriage took no heed of rank or wealth, Ronald simply spoke the truth. He had a slight tendency to hero-worship; and a man of Wilmot's talent, and, as he now found, of Wilmot's integrity and gentlemanly feeling, was just the person of whose friendship and alliance he would have been proud. Madeleine too? In his own heart Ronald felt perfectly certain that Madeleine was already gratefully fond of her preserver, and would soon become as passionately attached to him as the mildness of her nature would admit; while he knew that she would not feel that she was descending from her social position--that she was "marrying beneath her," to use the ordinarily accepted phrase, in the smallest degree. And yet--no, it was impossible! He, Ronald Kilsyth, the last man in the world to care for the talk of "_on_," "they," "everybody," the social scandal, and the club chatter, while it concerned himself, shrunk from it most sensitively when it threatened anyone dear to him. Physicians were all very well--everyone knew them of course, necessarily; but their wives--Ronald was trying to recollect how many physicians' wives he had ever met in society, when he recollected that it was Madeleine, who would of course hold her own position; and--and then came a thought of Lady Muriel, and the influence which she had over his father when they were both tolerably agreed upon the subject. It was impossible; and he must say so. He looked up straightforwardly and honestly at his companion, and said, "I wish to God that I could give you a different answer, Dr. Wilmot; but I cannot. I still think it is impossible."