'If your lordship will excuse me, I don't think I'll go up close to her,' Mrs. Moss whispered. 'Her ladyship don't seem to care to see me ever now,' and she slipped away, shutting the door softly behind her, and so leaving him alone with this strange and, it seemed to him, almost unreal presence. Slowly he went up and stood before her, and as he murmured words of greeting, and regret that he found her so ailing, he took hold of the thin, fleshless right hand, to feel startled surprise at the strength of its burning grasp. Looking down into the wan face, meeting the still penetrating grey eyes, Wantley saw with relief that, at this moment at any rate, she had full possession of her mind; for the despair he saw there was a sane despair, and one that told of sentient endurance. 'I see you have come alone,' she said at last in a low, clear, collected tone. 'You have not brought your wife? But I could not have expected you to do otherwise, knowing what you know.' 'Cecily is here. Of course she came with me,' he answered quickly. 'She is now lying down, the long journey tired her, and I felt sure you would like her to rest before seeing you.' 'Does she _know_?' asked Lady Wantley slowly, searchingly. 'Oh no!' he said, in almost a whisper, and glancing apprehensively round the room as he did so, but only to be made aware that they were indeed alone. Then, very deliberately, the young man drew up a chair close to hers. 'Has not the time now come when you should try and forget? Surely you should try and put the past out of your mind, if only for Penelope's sake?' 'Ah,' she said very plaintively, 'but I cannot forget! I am not allowed to do so. When I lie down I say, "When shall I arise and the night be gone?" And I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.' 'Yet you felt justified in your action--above all, you did save Penelope,' he urged in a low tone. But Lady Wantley turned on him a look of anguish and perplexity. 'Surely,' he added earnestly, 'surely you do not allow yourself to doubt that Penelope was saved--and saved, I am convinced, from what would have been a frightful fate, by your action?' 'I do not know,' she said feebly. 'Part of my punishment has been the doubt, the awful doubt, as to whether we were justified in our fears. If I gave my soul for hers, I am more than content to be marked with the mark of the Beast. For, Ludovic, they that dwell in mine house and my maids count me for a stranger; I am an alien in their sight.' Her words, their hopelessness, moved him to great pity. 'Why did you not ask us to come before?' he asked. 'We would have done so willingly, and then you would not have felt so sadly lonely.'