more exact description may be advisable. The person whom I thus
encountered hesitating before Mrs. Carew's house was a man of meager
build, sloping shoulders and handsome but painfully pinched features.
That he was a gentleman of culture and the nicest refinement was evident
at first glance; that this culture and refinement were at this moment
under the dominion of some fierce thought or resolve was equally
apparent, giving to his look an absorption which the shock attending the
glare I had thus suddenly thrown on his face could not immediately
dispel.

Dazed by an encounter for which he seemed even less prepared than
myself, he stood with his heart in his face, if I may so speak, and only
gradually came to himself as the sense of my proximity forced itself in
upon his suffering and engrossed mind. When I saw that he had quite
emerged from his dream, I dropped the light. But I did not forget his
look; I did not forget the man, though I hastened to leave him, in my
desire to fulfill the purpose for which I had entered these grounds at
so late an hour.

My plan was, as I have said, to visit the Ocumpaugh stables and have a
chat with the coachman. I had no doubt of my welcome and not much doubt
of myself. Yet as I left the vicinity of Mrs. Carew's cottage and came
upon the great house of the Ocumpaughs looming in the moonlight above
its marble terraces, I felt impressed as never before both by the beauty
and magnificence of the noble pile, and shrank with something like shame
from the presumption which had led me to pit my wits against a mystery
having its birth in so much grandeur and material power. The prestige of
great wealth as embodied in this superb structure well-nigh awed me from
my task and I was passing the twin pergolas and flower-bordered walks
with hesitating foot, when I heard through one of the open windows a cry
which made me forget everything but our common heritage of sorrow and
the equal hold it has on high and low.

"Philo!" the voice rang out in a misery to wring the heart of the most
callous. "Philo! Philo!"

Mr. Ocumpaugh's name called aloud by his suffering wife. Was she in
delirium? It would seem so; but why Philo! always Philo! and not once
Gwendolen?

With hushed steps, ears ringing and heart palpitating with new and
indefinable sensations, I turned into the road to the stables.

There were men about and I caught one glimpse of a maid's pretty head
looking from one of the rear windows, b