He sat at his desk with an open book before him, and a half-smoked cigar between his white, aristocratic fingers; but the fire had died out on the tip of his prime Havana, and the idle breeze turned the leaves of his book at its wanton will. He sat there, perfectly still and silent, in his great arm-chair, staring drearily before him, a stern, sad look on his handsome face, the fire of a jealous, all-consuming passion smouldering gloomily in the beautiful dark eyes, half veiled by their sweeping lashes. He had been trying to read, but the strange unrest that possessed him was too great to admit of fixing his attention on the author, yet now he slowly repeated some lines that caught his eye as the light breeze fluttered the book leaves: "Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung." "Ah! she is all that, and more," he exclaimed, bitterly, showing by those quick words where his thoughts were. A slight cough interrupted him. He looked up quickly and saw Robert Lyle standing within the half-open door. The old man moved forward deprecatingly. "Pardon my abrupt entrance, Captain Ernscliffe," he said; "I knocked several times without eliciting a reply, so I ventured to enter through the half-open door." Captain Ernscliffe arose and shook his visitor's hand with a cordiality tempered by an indefinable restraint. "Pray make no apologies, sir," he said. "They are quite unnecessary." He placed a chair for the visitor, then resumed his own seat, gazing rather curiously at the pleasant-looking, kindly old gentleman, who reminded him so much of his wife's father. What had brought him there, he wondered, with some slight nervousness at the thought. Mr. Lyle looked a little nervous, too. He wiped the dew from his fine old forehead, and remarked that it was a warm day. "I suppose so," assented the host in a tone that seemed to say he had not thought about it before. "I have come on a thankless mission, Lawrence," Mr. Lyle said, with some slight embarrassment. "At least on an unsolicited one. I wish to speak to you of--of Queenie." Captain Ernscliffe flushed crimson to the roots of his hair, and then grew deathly pale. "I must refer you to my counsel, then," he answered, after a pause. "I have nothing to say about her myself." "Lawrence!" The gently rebuking tone in which the one word was uttered made the hearer start. He looked up quickly. "Well, sir?" "Do you know that you are treating my niece very unfairly in this matter. It is cruel to condemn her with her defense unheard." "She condemned herself, Mr. Lyle, without a word from anyone else. Her guilt and shame were written all too legibly on her face the moment she looked upon Leon Vinton." "Let us grant that she had reason to be ashamed of his acquaintance, Lawrence. Still may there not be some extenuation for her fault?"