ine. Sir Noel's elder son shall be Sir
Noel's heir--I will play usurper no longer. To-morrow I leave St.
Gosport; the day after England, never perhaps, to return."

"You are mad," Colonel Jocyln said, turning very pale; "you do not mean
it."

"I am not mad, and I do mean it. I may be unfortunate; but, I pray God,
never a villain. Right is right; my brother Guy is the rightful
heir--not I."

"And Aileen?" Colonel Jocyln's face turned dark and rigid as iron as he
spoke his daughter's name.

Rupert Thetford turned away his changing face.

"It shall be as she says. Aileen is too noble and just herself not to
honor me for doing right."

"It shall be as I say," returned Colonel Jocyln, with a voice that rang,
and an eye that flashed. "My daughter comes of a proud and stainless
race, and never shall she mate with one less stainless. Hear me out,
young man. It won't do to fire up--plain words are best suited to a
plain case. All that has passed between you and Miss Jocyln must be as
if it had never been. The heir of Thetford Towers, honorably born, I
consented she should marry; but, dearly as I love her, I would see her
dead at my feet before she should marry one who was nameless and
impoverished. You said just now the atonement was yours--you said right;
go, and never return."

He pointed to the door; the young man, stonily still, took his hat.

"Will you not permit your daughter, Colonel Jocyln, to speak for
herself?" he said at the door.

"No, sir. I know my daughter--my proud, high-spirited Aileen, and my
answer is hers. I wish you good-night."

He swung round abruptly, turning his back upon his visitor. Rupert
Thetford, without one word, turned and walked out of the house.

The bewildering rapidity of the shocks he had received had stunned
him--he could not feel the pain now. There was a dull sense of aching
torture upon him from head to foot--but the acute edge was dulled; he
walked along through the black night like a man drugged and stupefied.

He was only conscious intensely of one thing--a wish to get away, never
to set foot in St. Gosport again.

Like one walking in his sleep, he reached Thetford Towers, his old home,
every tree and stone of which was dear to him. He entered at once,
passed into the drawing-room, and found Guy Legard, sitting before the
fire, staring blankly into the coals; and May Everard, roaming
restlessly up and down, the firelight falling dully on her black robes
and pale, tear-