in my way, but so little
alive that I cannot realize any other way. As for love, I am thankful
to have broken a spell. You have a younger woman in your mind; I am an
old one: I have no ambition and no warmth. My utmost prayer is to float
on the stream--a purely physical desire of life: I have no strength to
swim. Such a woman is not the wife for you, Sir Willoughby. Good night."

"One final word. Weigh it. Express no conventional regrets. Resolutely
you refuse?"

"Resolutely I do."

"You refuse?"

"Yes."

"I have sacrificed my pride for nothing! You refuse?"

"Yes."

"Humbled myself! And this is the answer! You do refuse?"

"I do."

"Good night, Laetitia Dale."

He gave her passage.

"Good night, Sir Willoughby."

"I am in your power," he said, in a voice between supplication and
menace that laid a claw on her, and she turned and replied:

"You will not be betrayed."

"I can trust you . . . ?"

"I go home to-morrow before breakfast."

"Permit me to escort you upstairs."

"If you please: but I see no one here either to-night or tomorrow."

"It is for the privilege of seeing the last of you."

They withdrew.

Young Crossjay listened to the drumming of his head. Somewhere in or
over the cavity a drummer rattled tremendously.

Sir Willoughby's laboratory door shut with a slam.

Crossjay tumbled himself off the ottoman. He stole up to the unclosed
drawing-room door, and peeped. Never was a boy more thoroughly
awakened. His object was to get out of the house and go through the
night avoiding everything human, for he was big with information of a
character that he knew to be of the nature of gunpowder, and he feared
to explode. He crossed the hall. In the passage to the scullery he ran
against Colonel De Craye.

"So there you are," said the colonel, "I've been hunting you."

Crossjay related that his bedroom door was locked and the key gone, and
Sir Willoughby sitting up in the laboratory.

Colonel De Craye took the boy to his own room, where Crossjay lay on a
sofa, comfortably covered over and snug in a swelling pillow; but he
was restless; he wanted to speak, to bellow, to cry; and he bounced
round to his left side, and bounced to his right, not knowing what to
think, except that there was treason to his adored Miss Middleton.

"Why, my lad, you're not half a campaigner," the colonel called out to
him; attributing his uneasiness to the material discomfort of the sofa:
and Crossjay had to