aced the dollars, he
muttered something that sounded like, "I thank God she is
uncontaminated!" He then followed the gentle girl through many passages,
and up and down more than one flight of stairs: they both at length
stopped before a door that was thickly plated with iron.

"You need not wait," said Dalton, laying his hand on the latch. Barbara
paused a moment, to look on the wild being, so different from the staid
persons she was in the daily habit of seeing at the hall; and then her
light, even step, faded on the sailor's ear.

Sir Robert Cecil was standing, or rather leaning, with folded arms,
against a column of the dark marble chimney-piece, which, enriched by
various carvings and mouldings, rose nearly to the ceiling. The
Baronet's hair, of mingled grey and black, had been cropped according to
the approved fashion of the time; so that his features had not the
advantage of either shadow or relief from the most beautiful of nature's
ornaments. He might have been a few years older or younger than the
sailor who had just entered; but his figure seemed weak and bending as a
willow-wand, as he moved slowly round to receive his visiter. The
usually polite expression of his countenance deepened into the
insidious, and a faint smile rested for a moment on his lip. This
outward show of welcome contrasted strangely with the visible tremor
that agitated his frame: he did not speak; either from inability to coin
an appropriate sentence, or the more subtle motive of waiting until the
communication of the stranger was first made.

After a lengthened pause, during which Dalton slowly advanced, so as to
stand opposite Sir Robert Cecil, he commenced the conversation, without
any of that show of courtesy, which the consciousness of their relative
situations might have called for: even his cap was unremoved.

"I am sorry, Sir Robert, to have come at such a time; nor would I now
remain, were it not that my business----"

"I am not aware," interrupted the Baronet, "of any matters of
'_business_' pending between us. I imagine, on reflection, you will find
that all such have been long since concluded. If there is any way,
indeed, in which I can oblige you, for the sake of an old servant----"

"_Servant!_" in his turn interrupted Dalton, with emphasis, "we have
been companions, Sir Robert--_companions_ in more than one act; and, by
the dark heavens above us, will be so in another--if necessary."

The haughty Baronet writhed unde