A sterner light came into Comethup's eyes. "Yes," he said, "I am quite sure. They will be married at once. You must be very fond of her," he added gently, "to take the matter so much to heart. But I suppose any one could get fond of her quite easily. And you've been with her a number of years." The woman looked at him with a forlorn expression of countenance, and clasped her hands and began to weep, not with any violence but in a hopeless, helpless way that was more terrible than anything else could possibly have been. The secret she had borne so long, the story of that shameful flight which she had been compelled at first to keep from her child, and later had kept for her own sake, seemed to weigh more heavily now than it could have done at any other time. She had seen the child grow to girlhood, and then to womanhood; had been content with what tenderness she could win from her, in her position as a tried and faithful friend, fearing to jeopardize even that small happiness by any avowal of the true relationship between them. Comethup left her, and went slowly out through the garden again. He had forgotten everything but that one thought--that she was gone--forgotten that, within two hundred yards of him, his aunt and the captain awaited his arrival, and would look for an explanation. In quite an aimless way he got into the streets, and walked until he found himself outside the Bell Inn. Scarcely knowing what he did, he went up the stairs, turned the handle of the door, and walked into the room in which he had seen Brian and his father. Mr. Robert Carlaw was standing by the fireplace, looking into the glass; he turned round sharply as Comethup entered the room. "Brian has gone, I hear?" said Comethup, in a low voice. Mr. Robert Carlaw flung out his hands with a despairing gesture. "It is true, sir. With that base ingratitude which has ever been his chief characteristic he has deserted me in the hour of my need. More than all, he has taken with him the whole of the money you were generous enough to place in our hands, and which I was foolish enough to leave in his keeping." "That's well," said Comethup half to himself. "I'm glad he's got some money." "Glad, sir! And pray what is to become of _me_?" exclaimed Mr. Carlaw. "Have I lavished the tenderest care upon him for years past; have I sacrificed everything to him; have I raced, in my declining years, through strange and vile places of the earth, in order to be near him and to protect him; have I done all this to be deserted now, at the last, for a wretched jade----"