"Philip! oh, for Heaven's sake, stop this madness!" whispered Ada. Sir Murray Gernon cooled down in an instant, though still retaining his grasp. "I am quite calm, Mr Elstree," he said; "but this man must leave the house at once." "Calm!" shouted Philip Norton, mad almost with rage. "Thief! robber! you have stolen her from me. She is mine--my wife--sworn to be mine; and you, amongst you, have made her false to her vows." "Mr Norton," said Sir Murray, "are you a gentleman?" "How dare you--you dog--ask me that?" "Leave this house, then; and I will meet you at any future time, should you, in your cooler moments, wish it. I did intend to leave for the Continent this afternoon; but I will stay. I pity you--upon my soul, I do--but you must know that no one is to blame. You are, or ought to be, aware that the _Gazette_ published your death nearly four years ago, and that you have been truly mourned for. No one has been faithless, but your memory has been respected as well as cherished. You have come in a strange and mad way; but we are ready to overlook all that, as due to the excitement and bitterness of your feelings. I now ask you, as a gentleman, for the sake of her parents, for your own sake--for the sake of _my wife_--to leave here quietly, and to try to look calmly upon the present state of affairs. I have done." As Sir Murray ceased speaking he suffered his hand to fall from Norton's throat, and stood calmly facing him, gazing into the other's fierce, wild eyes unblenched, while, as if the calm words of reason had forced themselves to his heart, he, too, allowed his hands to fall, and as the fierce rage seemed to fade out of his countenance, a strange shiver passed through his frame, and he looked in a pitiful, pleading way from face to face, as if seeking comfort, before speaking, in a cracked, hollow voice: