Dolff stood breathless, feeling the light fail in his eyes. He saw Meredith spring up and open the door for her, and with a pang watched while the little dark figure disappeared. For the moment he was only aware of her disappearance, of the final going out as he thought in eternal darkness of the little light which had made his life so different. He came back to himself with a gasp when the door closed, but scarcely knew what had been said to him for the beating of the pulses in his head. “‘Adolphus Charles Harwood’?” said Julia, thoughtfully; “then that, I suppose, is the poor gentleman’s name; so, Dolff, you see I was right, and it was a relation after all.” “What is Pierre et Jean, Charley?” said Mrs. Harwood, sitting up a little more erect than usual, with a kindling in her eyes. “It is a very clever French novel--far more clever and better than most--a very fine piece of work.” “But with something in it,” said Mrs. Harwood, “like our circumstances? You must bring it to me to read it, Dolff. If I did not burden your minds with a secret, which would have done you no good, and been hard, hard to keep----” “Then,” he said, interrupting her abruptly, “it is a relation? but even that I never heard of before. How is it that there should be a man of that name in the family, and I should never have heard of him before?” He still stood on the defensive, his face flushed with anger, and a sense of being wrong and inferior to all the rest somehow, though he could not tell how. It is strange how difficult it sometimes is in such a discussion, when there is one whose invincible ignorance holds out in face of all argument and proof, to say the single word which will cut the knot. It was on Gussy’s lips to say it; but she did not, perhaps because Dolff’s want of comprehension was so curious to them all. And at this moment, almost before he could be replied to, there arose a little commotion in the hall. Janet’s voice was heard in a faint cry, and there was a shuffling of feet, and another unknown male voice rising in the quiet. Julia, who was awake like a dog to all new sounds, rushed to the door and flung it open, and then there became visible the strangest sight. There stood upon the threshold an old man in a strange dress, something between a long coat and a gown, with a white beard on his breast, long white hair streaming on his shoulders, and a long pallid face. His appearance was so sudden, so unlooked-for, like a stage entrance without warning, that the effect was more startling and wild than could be imagined. It was as if the conversation, in which so many complications, so many misunderstandings, were involved, had been suddenly embodied in this bizarre and extraordinary figure which was its cause. And, as if to make it more extraordinary still, this strange apparition held by the hand, with her arm drawn through his, Janet, pale, terrified, and faintly struggling, who had left the room but a moment before.