o'clock. Elizabeth mustn't keep you talking like this!"

She smiled at him with uplifted finger, trying to hide from him all
traces of emotion.

But her son looked at her steadily.

"Mother, is Anderson gone?"

"No," said Mrs. Gaddesden, with hesitation. "But he doesn't want you to
talk any more to-night--he begs you not. Please--Philip!"

"Ask him to come here!" said Philip, peremptorily. "I want to talk to
him and Elizabeth."

Mrs. Gaddesden protested in vain. The mother and daughter looked at each
other with flushed faces, holding a kind of mute dialogue. Then
Elizabeth rose from her seat by the fire.

"I will call Mr. Anderson, Philip. But if we convince you that what you
ask is quite impossible, will you promise to go quietly to bed and try
to sleep? It breaks mother's heart, you know, to see you straining
yourself like this."

Philip nodded--a crimson spot in each cheek, his frail hands twining and
untwining as he tried to compose himself.

Elizabeth went half-way down the stairs and called. Anderson hurried out
of the drawing-room, and saw her bending to him from the shadows, very
white and calm.

"Will you come back to Philip a moment?" she said, gently. "Philip has
told me what he proposed to you."

Anderson could not find a word to say. In a blind tumult of feeling he
caught her hand, and pressed his lips to it, as though appealing to her
dumbly to understand him.

She smiled at him.

"It will be all right," she whispered. "My poor Philip!" and she led him
back to the sick room.

"George--I wanted you to come back, to talk this thing out," said
Philip, turning to him as he entered, with the tyranny of weakness.
"There's no time to waste. You know--everybody knows--I may get
worse--and there'll be nothing settled. It's my duty to settle--"

Elizabeth interrupted him.

"Philip darling!--"

She was hanging over his chair, while Anderson stood a few feet away,
leaning against the mantelpiece, his face turned from the brother and
sister. The intimacy--solemnity almost--of the sick-room, the midnight
hour, seemed to strike through Elizabeth's being, deepening and yet
liberating emotion.

"Dear Philip! It is not for Mr. Anderson to answer you--it is for me. If
he could give up his country--for happiness--even for love--I should
never marry him--for--I should not love him any more."

Anderson turned to look at her. She had moved, and was now standing in
front of Philip, her head thrown back