Old Patton made a sign to a servant, and whispered something to the man, who bent his head to listen; then the man and another hurried round, and began to fill the champagne glasses. I saw that Barbara was watching her father; I saw her lips parted, as though she would have spoken, but dared not. And still I did not understand; still it never occurred to me to look at the young man of the good-humoured face, who sat beside her, and who had, I imagine, begun to colour a little consciously. "And now for something a little more pleasant," said old Patton, with the somewhat dictatorial air of the host. "Your glasses are charged, friends, and I have a toast to propose----" "Not now, father," I heard Barbara's distressed voice say. "A toast you will all be glad, I am sure, to drink heartily. I give you----" "Father!--not now!" "My dear child, better now than at any time," he retorted, nodding at her with a kindly frown. "My friends," he went on, looking round at us--"I have an announcement to make to you--an announcement of a very pleasing character." He cleared his throat, and jerked his chin up a little, with an air of importance. "I have to announce the engagement of my daughter Barbara to her cousin--Lucas Savell--and I ask you to drink their healths." I know that my heart seemed to stand still; in the momentary silence I could only stare straight across at the girl. She had raised her eyes, and was looking straight at me; and again in those eyes I read pleading and entreaty, and perhaps a prayer that I would understand. Our eyes held each other's then, just as they had held by their glances in the wood. "I am getting on in years, and it is more than possible that there is not much more time left to me," went on old Patton. "I shall be glad to feel that my child's future is safe in the hands of a good man. It has been the wish of my life that these two young people should marry, and after a little hesitation--coyness, I suppose--the thing has been settled. My friends"--he raised his glass, and smiled round upon us all--"the health of my daughter and of her future husband!" We all stood up, raising our glasses, and murmuring the toast. Some little surprise and confusion was caused by the fact that the thin stem of my glass snapped in my fingers, so that the glass fell, spilling the wine over the cloth. It did not seem to matter then; nothing seemed to matter at all; the world was dead for me. I was glad when presently the ladies rose to go; I saw Savell whisper something to Barbara, and saw that she replied, without looking at him. Nor did she look at me again; she passed out of the room with bent head.