and Sir
Rupert Thetford stood alone before the village church. Lady Thetford
slept with the rest of the name in the stony vaults; the fair-haired
artist stood in the porch looking at the slanting lines of rain, and Sir
Rupert, with a face wan, and stern, in the dying daylight, stood face to
face with the colonel.

"A private interview," the colonel was repeating; "most certainly, Sir
Rupert. Will you come with me to Jocyln Hall? My daughter will wish to
see you."

The young man nodded, went back a moment to speak to Legard, and then
followed the colonel into the carriage. The drive was a very silent
one--dark gloom lay on the faces of the two men. A vague, chilling
presentiment of impending evil on the Indian officer, as he uneasily
watched the young man who had so nearly been his son.

Aileen Jocyln, roaming like a restless ghost through the lonely rooms,
saw them alight, and came out to the hall to meet her betrothed. She
held out both hands shyly and wistfully, looking up, half in fear, in
that rigid death-white face of her lover.

"Aileen!"

He took the hands, and held them fast a moment; then dropped them, and
turned to the colonel.

"Now, Colonel Jocyln."

The colonel led the way into the library. Sir Rupert paused a moment on
the threshold to answer Aileen's pleading glance.

"Only for a few moments, Aileen," he said, his eyes softening with
infinite love; "in half an hour my fate shall be decided. Let that fate
be what it may, I shall be true to you while life lasts."

With these enigmatical words, he followed the colonel into the library,
and the polished oaken door closed between him and Aileen.

CHAPTER XIV.

PARTED.

Half an hour had passed.

Up and down the long drawing-room Aileen wandered, aimlessly,
restlessly, oppressed with an overwhelming dread of, she knew not what,
a prescience of evil, vague as it was terrible. The dark gloom of the
rainy evening was not darker than that brooding shadow in her deep,
dusky eyes.

In the library Colonel Jocyln stood facing his son-in-law elect, staring
like a man bereft of his senses. The melancholy half light coming wanly
through the oriel window by which he stood, fell full upon the face of
Rupert Thetford, white and cold, and set as marble.

"My God!" the Indian officer said, with wild eyes of terror and
affright, "what is this you are telling me?"

"The truth, Col. Jocyln--the simple truth. Would to Heaven I had known
it years ago-