he hall,
for there had come the loud ringing of a bell, succeeded by a clamour of
voices.

"I tell you I will see her!" exclaimed Philip Norton, angrily, as he
stood in the hall, with Ada clinging to his arm.

"Come in here, pray!--for Heaven's sake, come in here, Norton," cried
the Rector, opening the drawing-room door. "This is not seemly--we are
all grieved; but do not insult my child."

"Insult, old man!" exclaimed Norton angrily, as he followed him into the
room; and then he uttered a cry of rage, for, unwittingly, the Rector
had asked him into the very room where, angry and mortified, his
newly-wedded wife up-stairs with her mother, Sir Murray Gernon was
striding up and down.

In a moment the young men had each other by the throat, and stood
glaring into each other's eyes, heedless that Ada and the Rector clung
to first one and then the other, in a vain attempt to separate them.

"Murray! for my child's sake!" exclaimed the Rector.

"Philip! oh, for Heaven's sake, stop this madness!" whispered Ada.

Sir Murray Gernon cooled down in an instant, though still retaining his
grasp.

"I am quite calm, Mr Elstree," he said; "but this man must leave the
house at once."

"Calm!" shouted Philip Norton, mad almost with rage. "Thief! robber!
you have stolen her from me. She is mine--my wife--sworn to be mine;
and you, amongst you, have made her false to her vows."

"Mr Norton," said Sir Murray, "are you a gentleman?"

"How dare you--you dog--ask me that?"

"Leave this house, then; and I will meet you at any future time, should
you, in your cooler moments, wish it. I did intend to leave for the
Continent this afternoon; but I will stay. I pity you--upon my soul, I
do--but you must know that no one is to blame. You are, or ought to be,
aware that the _Gazette_ published your death nearly four years ago, and
that you have been truly mourned for. No one has been faithless, but
your memory has been respected as well as cherished. You have come in a
strange and mad way; but we are ready to overlook all that, as due to
the excitement and bitterness of your feelings. I now ask you, as a
gentleman, for the sake of her parents, for your own sake--for the sake
of _my wife_--to leave here quietly, and to try to look calmly upon the
present state of affairs. I have done."

As Sir Murray ceased speaking he suffered his hand to fall from Norton's
throat, and stood calmly facing him, gazing into the other's fierce,