Celia ate her dinner and returned to the library, where she worked for a

couple of hours to make up for the time she had lost in the afternoon;

then she took up an exquisitely-bound copy of Spenser's "Faerie Queene"

and settled herself in a chair for half an hour's quiet reading. But the

great masterpiece could not hold her attention; she let it lie on her

lap and thought of her adventures of the day; she tried not to dwell on

Susie's tragedy, though it was difficult not to do so; and presently her

mind reverted to Brown's Buildings, to Mr. Clendon and the young man she

had rescued. And yet "rescued," she thought, with a sigh, was scarcely

the word, for, unwittingly, she had made him a fugitive and an outcast.

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The great house was quiet, and, relying on Mrs. Dexter's assurance that

she ran no risk of intruding upon the Marquess, she turned out the

lights and went into the hall. On the threshold she drew back, with a

little flutter of excitement, for in the dim light of the great fire,

which was always burning, she saw a tall, thin figure in evening dress

standing with its hands clasped behind it. It was the Marquess. She saw

distinctly the pale, worn face, the thin, almost colourless lips, drawn

into a line that indicated profound sadness and a deep anxiety. He was

standing before the portrait of the lad, his elder brother, of whose

history Mrs. Dexter had told her; the elder brother who, if he had not

died, "in foreign parts," would have been the Marquess instead of the

man who was gazing at the portrait.

Celia stood quite still, her eyes chained to the haggard face; she did

not know whether to withdraw into the library or to pass softly behind

him and reach the stairs; and while she was hesitating, the Marquess

heaved a deep sigh, made a gesture as of a man beaten by some insoluble

problem, and, turning, saw her.

He did not start--men of his class are taught to repress every sign of

emotion--and he stood quite still, looking at her gravely, as if the

sudden interruption of his train of absorbing thought had caused him to

forget whom she might be; then, as if he had remembered, he came towards

her and said: "You are Miss Grant, the librarian, I suppose?"

Even as she answered, "Yes, my lord," Celia noted the dull, toneless

melancholy of his voice, the voice of a man to whom all things save one,

whatever that might be, are but trivial and of no consequence.




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