Mr. Trimmer met her in the hall with a face of stone, and conducted her up to the bedroom. Her heart beat wildly until she was actually in the room, and the little huddled-up figure on the bed came into view. Then, she lost all her terror, and felt only pity for the shriveled, ape-like creature. "Sit down, Miss Dundas. It is kind of you to visit an old man. Trimmer, a chair for Miss Dundas, close to my bed. My hearing is not what it was." His voice was soft, and his manner genial. There was nothing at all terrifying about him. "You wished me to come to you?" murmured Dora. "Trimmer, go out of the room. You needn't wait. Yes, Miss Dundas, I sent for you. I made your acquaintance two years ago. I was only in a bath-chair then; now, you see what I have come to." "I am deeply sorry." "When you came before," said Herresford, bluntly, "I liked the look of you, Miss Dora; and I said to myself that, if Dick was not a fool and blind, he would choose you for his wife." "Don't! Don't!" cried Dora, with a sudden catch in her voice. "I'm engaged to marry Mr. Ormsby." "An excellent match--a match that does credit to your head, my girl. But Ormsby is not a man--he's only a machine. He thinks too much of his money. With him, it's money, money--all money. A bad thing! A bad thing!" Dora opened her eyes wide in surprise, wondering if she heard aright. Was this the miser? "Now, Dick was a man--and he died like a gentleman--with his back to the wall--hurling defiance at the muzzles of the enemy's rifles." Dora bowed her head, and the tears began to fall. She raised her muff to her face to hide the spasm of pain that distorted her features. "Ah! a boy worth crying for, my dear," said the old man, dragging himself with difficulty to the edge of the bed; "but a shocking spendthrift. That's where we quarreled--though we never quarreled much. I had my say--the boy had his. Sometimes I was hard, and sometimes he was harder. The taunts of the young cut the old deeper than the taunts of the old cut the young. Do you follow me?" Dora nodded. "Now, if he had married a wife like you, a girl with a level head and a stiff upper lip, a girl with not sufficient sentiment to make her a fool, nor enough brains to be a prig, but just clever enough to supply her husband's deficiencies, he would have been my heir, and this place and all my money would have been his--and yours." "Why do you tell me these things, now?" she cried, a note of anger in her voice. "Because I don't want you to marry Ormsby." "Why not? It is to please my father. He wishes it, and--I must marry somebody. I'm not going to be an old maid. I shall never love anybody as I loved Dick, and I might as well recognize the fact."