towards him--an almost imperceptible one. _Did_ she raise her
hands as if to hold them out to him? If so, it is so slight a gesture as
scarcely to be remembered afterwards, and at all events the professor
takes no notice of it, presumably, therefore, he does not see it.

"It is late," says Perpetua a moment afterwards. "I must go and dress
for dinner." _Her_ eyes are down now. She looks pale and shamed.

"You have nothing to say, then?" asks the professor, compelling himself
to the question.

"About what?"

"Hardinge."

The girl turns a white face to his.

"Will you then _compel_ me to marry him?" says she. "Am
I"--faintly--"nothing to you? Nothing----" She seems to fade back from
him in the growing uncertainty of the light into the shadow of the
corner beyond. Curzon makes a step towards her.

At this moment the door is thrown suddenly open, and a man--evidently a
professional man--advances into the room.

"Sir Thaddeus," begins he, in a slow, measured way.

The professor stops dead short. Even Perpetua looks amazed.

"I regret to be the messenger of bad news, sir," says the solemn man in
black. "They told me I should find you here. I have to tell you, Sir
Thaddeus, that your brother, the late lamented Sir Hastings is dead."
The solemn man spread his hands abroad.

CHAPTER XVI.

'Till the secret be secret no more
In the light of one hour as it flies,
Be the hour as of suns that expire
Or suns that rise."

It is quite a month later. August, hot and sunny, is reigning with quite
a mad merriment, making the most of the days that be, knowing full well
that the end of the summer is nigh. The air is stifling; up from the
warm earth comes the almost overpowering perfume of the late flowers.
Perpetua moving amongst the carnations and hollyhocks in her soft white
cambric frock, gathers a few of the former in a languid manner to place
in the bosom of her frock. There they rest, a spot of blood color upon
their white ground.

Lady Baring, on the death of her elder brother, had left town for the
seclusion of her country home, carrying Perpetua with her. She had grown
very fond of the girl, and the fancy she had formed (before Sir
Hastings' death) that Thaddeus was in love with the young heiress, and
that she would make him a suitable wife, had not suffered in any way
through the fact of Sir Thaddeus having now become the head of the
family.

Perpetua, having idly plucked