"Protect her," he thought, "against this unknown man, who seems to threaten my safety and her peace, of course I shall. This is the first time she has sought my protection, and by a fortunate chance it is against one whom I have reason to dislike. How lucky! How lucky I have been in everything connected with this Castle--about the will, about the old man's illness, about the confidence! All has turned out exactly as I wished. Her arm is now in mine. She is calling out to me for help. I feel already as if I had won her; as if she leaned upon my arm as my--wife." Then he whispered to her, "Rest assured this man shall not intrude upon you. If he keeps quiet he may remain until the will has been read. Then I shall be officially installed as your guardian, Miss Midharst, and I shall know how to act towards him if he dares to interfere with you." Drawing himself up to his full height, he walked slowly into the library with Miss Midharst on his arm, and Mrs. Grant following a few paces behind. His face was calm and firm; in his tread and gait there was conscious power. He felt he could have faced any danger then. She, upon whose good regard towards him and final acceptance of him as a suitor all depended, hung on his arm and clung to him for protection. The chance that the Tower of Silence would in his lifetime give up its secret was one to a million. He had a single reasonable cause of dread, and that was lest she, Maud Midharst, might turn away from him--might finally reject him. With her arm on his, and the memory of her confiding glance, he felt like a great captain, who, having in secret prepared a crushing attack, throws up his head and pants at hearing the great bay of the signal-gun which is to shake out the standards and let loose the thunders of prodigious war. No more than a dozen people were present. The servants stood at the end of the room remotest from the one large window. With its back to the window, at the head of the table, was the baronet's great straight-backed oak chair, empty. Mr. Grey led Miss Midharst to a chair on the right of this. As she moved up through the room, half a dozen gentlemen, seated round the room and at the table, rose and bowed. The stranger, whose chair was at the foot of the table, rose with the rest, and bowed more profoundly than any of the others. As soon as Miss Midharst was seated, Mr. Grey crossed at the back of the vacant chair and sat down upon the left of it. Upon Grey's left sat Mr. Shaw, the deceased baronet's lawyer. On Miss Midharst's right sat Mrs. Grant. Dr. Hardy, who had attended the funeral, was present by particular request. The old lawyer, whose hands were tremulous, closed his eyes up firmly first, pulled his white whiskers, shook his white hair, and, looking at Grey, demanded in a feeble shaky voice: "Is everything now ready for reading the last will and testament of Sir Alexander Midharst, deceased, as by him desired?"