He did not answer. He was walking slowly up and down the floor, pausing now and then to look out of the window which overlooked the Elizabeth River and the wharves crowded with the shipping of all nationalities. His sister rose and paced the floor, also, her young heart full of sympathy for the four people whose life-paths crossed each other so strangely and sadly. She shuddered and hoped she would never love. Of the three men who each loved Grace Winans in his own fashion, she wondered which was the most unhappy; the husband who had stained his hands in human blood for his selfish passion; Bruce Conway who was dying for her, or her brother whose heart was silently breaking for her. The little maiden who was all unversed in the lore of life found herself bewildered in the maze of metaphysics into which she was drifting. She sat herself down with a sigh, and thought of the handsome face lying so deathly white up stairs, and half wishing her mother had not banished her from the room. "Lulu!" "Yes, Brother Willie." He was looking at her as she looked up at him with a flitting blush on her round, dimpled face. She was wonderfully pretty, this Lulu Clendenon, with her arch brown eyes, and pink and white skin, the wavy brown hair that was gathered in a soft, loosely braided coil at the back of her small head, and her blue lawn dress, with its frillings, and flutings, and puffings, was very becoming, setting off the whiteness of her throat and wrists as no other color ever does for a pretty woman. "Well," she said, as he did not answer her first reply. "My little sister, I won't have you tangling your brain up with useless speculations over things that must happen as long as the world stands and men and women live, and breathe, and have their being. Don't let me see that pretty brow all puckered up again. What would mother and I do if our household fairy became dull, and dreamy, and philosophical." "Brother Willie, am I always to be a child?" "Always, my sweet? Why how old are you--sixteen?" "I am nineteen, brother, and this Mrs. Winans of whom all Norfolk is raving, who is a wife and mother--she, it is said, is barely more than twenty." "Yes, love; but the loss of parents and friends forced Grace Grey into premature womanhood and premature responsibilities; she took up the cross early, but you, dear little one----" A low tinkle of the door-bell cut short whatever else he meant to say, and he answered the summons himself. It was a messenger from Mrs. Conway to inquire concerning her nephew. He sent back a message that he still lay sleeping quietly. For the rest of the day the house was besieged with callers and inquirers from all parts of the city, and Captain Clendenon found himself kept busy in replying.