he ominous gloom of the Major's greeting; few young men have very
keen perception of mood, and Larry, deeply self-engrossed, wildly
happy, had flung at once into his theme, which, it need hardly be
said, was Christian. Then the storm broke, and the lightning blazed,
and the thunders of the house uttered their voice, while Larry,
amazed, horrified, gradually, as the invective gathered volume and
venom, becoming angry, stood in silence, and received in a single
cloud-burst the bitter flood of long-pent prejudice, jealousy, and
sense of injury.

"Dead!" Dick had roared; "I'd rather see her dead in her coffin than
married to--"

The epithets that a hoarded hatred finds ready to hand when its pent
force is released, come horribly from the lips of an old man. Yet,
almost more horrible than the full tide of rage, was to see its ebb,
as "the sick old servant" in Major Dick's bosom failed him, and his
heart staggered and fainted in its effort to abet him in denouncing
the young cousin who he thought had wronged him.

Larry sat, fondling the old setter's chestnut head, thinking it all
over, flaming again at the remembered insults, quailing at the
possibilities as they concerned Christian. Once she had appeared at
the top of the stairs, and said the single word, "Better!" before she
vanished.

One half of Larry's mind said "Better? What do I care? Better if he
dies, if he comes between me and her!" The other, which was his deeper
self, preserved the memory of Dick's greying face and frightened eyes,
and was glad that relief had come.

At last Christian came to him, slowly and with a dragging step, down
the wide staircase. Her face was white, her eyes were set in shadows.

"How is he?"

"Round the corner, I think. We've wired for Mangan."

"Christian, I want to explain--I said nothing--I never meant to annoy
him, I began about you, and that--that we loved each other. For we do,
Christian, don't we?" He had her hands in his, he crushed them in his
anxiety, his eyes implored her. "Then suddenly he began to abuse me
like a madman! My religion, my politics, my treachery to my class--I
can't tell you what he didn't say! And then he swore he'd rather see
you dead than married to me. I don't know what I said--nothing, I
think; he began to look as if he were dying himself, and I rang the
bell and bolted for you."

"Poor boy!" said Christian.

He thought that her face as she looked at him was as it were the face
of an angel, b