“I declare,” said Mr Brandon, rising, “my conduct is indefensible, but I am going to my room, and, on my way, will keep my part of the contract.”

“I will go with you,” said the colonel.

Together they mounted the stairs, and approached the corridor; and, as they opened its glass doors, they saw, sitting in a chair on one side of the passage, the Widow Keswick.

If Mr Brandon had not been caught by his friend he would have fallen over backwards.  Regaining an upright position, he made a frantic turn, as if he would fly, but he was not quick enough; Mrs Keswick had him by the arm.

“Robert!” she exclaimed.  “I knew how true and faithful you would be.  It has just struck eleven.  How do you do, Colonel Macon?” And she extended her hand.

There was no one in the corridor at the time but these three, but the place was much used as a passageway, and Colonel Macon, who was very pale, but still retained his presence of mind, knew well, that if any one were to come along at this moment, it would be decidedly unpleasant, not only for his friend, but himself.  “I am glad to meet you again, Mrs Keswick,” he said.  “Let us go into one of the parlors.  It will be more comfortable.”

“How kind,” murmured Mrs Keswick, as she clung to the arm of Mr Brandon, “for you to bring our good friend, Colonel Macon.”

They went into a parlor, which was empty, and where they were not likely to be disturbed.  Mr Brandon walked there without saying a word.  His face was as pallid as its well-seasoned color would allow, and he looked straight before him with an air which seemed to indicate that he was trying to remember something terrible, or else trying to forget it, and that he himself did not know which it was.

Colonel Macon did not stay long in the parlor.  There was that in the air of Mrs Keswick which made him understand that there were other places in Richmond where he would be much more welcome than in that room.  He went down into the large hall where the gentlemen generally congregate; and there, in great distress of mind, he paced up and down the marble floor, exchanging nothing but the briefest salutations and answers with the acquaintances he occasionally encountered.  The clerk, behind his desk at one side of the hall, had seen men walking up and down in that way, and he thought that the colonel had probably been speculating in tobacco or wheat; but he knew he was good for the amount of his bill, and he retained his placidity.

In about half an hour, there came down the stairs, at one end of the hall, an elderly person who somewhat resembled Mr Brandon of Midbranch.  The clothes and the hat were the same that that gentleman wore, and the same heavy gold chain with dangling seal-rings hung across his ample waistcoat; but there was a general air of haggardness and stoop about him which did not in the least suggest the upright and portly gentleman who had written his name in the hotel register the day before yesterday.