adopted the legitimate road out of her
trouble. Hitherto there had seemed to her dismayed mind, unenlightened
as to any course save one of honesty, no possible achievement of _both_
her desires--the saving of Swithin and the saving of herself. But
behold, here was a way! A tempter had shown it to her. It involved a
great wrong, which to her had quite obscured its feasibility. But she
perceived now that it was indeed a way. Nature was forcing her hand at
this game; and to what will not nature compel her weaker victims, in
extremes?

Louis left her to think it out. When he reached the drawing-room Dr.
Helmsdale was standing there with the air of a man too good for his
destiny--which, to be just to him, was not far from the truth this time.

'Have you broken my message to her?' asked the Bishop sonorously.

'Not your message; your visit,' said Louis. 'I leave the rest in your
Lordship's hands. I have done all I can for her.'

She was in her own small room to-day; and, feeling that it must be a bold
stroke or none, he led the Bishop across the hall till he reached her
apartment and opened the door; but instead of following he shut it behind
his visitor.

Then Glanville passed an anxious time. He walked from the foot of the
staircase to the star of old swords and pikes on the wall; from these to
the stags' horns; thence down the corridor as far as the door, where he
could hear murmuring inside, but not its import. The longer they
remained closeted the more excited did he become. That she had not
peremptorily negatived the proposal at the outset was a strong sign of
its success. It showed that she had admitted argument; and the worthy
Bishop had a pleader on his side whom he knew little of. The very
weather seemed to favour Dr. Helmsdale in his suit. A blusterous wind
had blown up from the west, howling in the smokeless chimneys, and
suggesting to the feminine mind storms at sea, a tossing ocean, and the
hopeless inaccessibility of all astronomers and men on the other side of
the same.

The Bishop had entered Viviette's room at ten minutes past three. The
long hand of the hall clock lay level at forty-five minutes past when the
knob of the door moved, and he came out. Louis met him where the passage
joined the hall.

Dr. Helmsdale was decidedly in an emotional state, his face being
slightly flushed. Louis looked his anxious inquiry without speaking it.

'She accepts me,' said the Bishop in a low voi