“Grace?  Grace?  What is she doing here?”

“Nursing him, like an angel as she is!” said Mark.

“She is my daughter now, Tom; and has been these twelve months past.”

Tom was silent, as one astonished.

“If she is not, she will be soon,” said he quietly, between his clenched teeth.  “Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me for five minutes, and see to my father:”—­and he walked straight out of the room, closing the door behind him—­to find Grace waiting in the passage.

She was trembling from head to foot, stepping to and fro, her hands and face all but convulsed; her left hand over her bosom, clutching at her dress, which seemed to have been just disarranged; her right drawn back, holding something; her lips parted, struggling to speak; her great eyes opened to preternatural wideness, fixed on him with an intensity of eagerness;—­was she mad?

At last words bubbled forth:  “There! there!  There it is!—­the belt!—­ your belt!  Take it! take it, I say!”

He stood silent and wondering; she thrust it into his hand.

“Take it!  I have carried it for you—­worn it next my heart, till it has all but eaten into my heart.  To Varna, and you were not there!—­Scutari, Balaklava, and you were not there!—­I found it, only a week after!—­I told you I should! and you were gone!—­Cruel, not to wait!  And Mr. Armsworth has the money—­every farthing—­and the gold:—­he has had it these two years!—­I would give you the belt myself; and now I have done it, and the snake is unclasped from my heart at last, at last, at last!”

Her arms dropped by her side, and she burst into an agony of tears.

Tom caught her in his arms:  but she put him back, and looked up in his face again.

“Promise me!” she said, in a low clear voice; “promise me this one thing only, as you are a gentleman; as you have a man’s pity, a man’s gratitude in you”

“Anything!”

“Promise me that you will never ask, or seek to know, who had that belt.”

“I promise:  but, Grace!—­”

“Then my work is over,” said she in a calm collected voice.  “Amen.  So lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.  Good-bye, Mr. Thurnall.  I must go and pack up my few things now.  You will forgive and forget?”

“Grace!” cried Tom; “stay!” and he girdled her in a grasp of iron.  “You and I never part more in this life, perhaps not in all lives to come!”

“Me?  I?—­let me go!  I am not worthy of you!”

“I have heard that once already;—­the only folly which ever came out of those sweet lips.  No!  Grace, I love you, as man can love but once; and you shall not refuse me!  You will not have the heart, Grace!  You will not dare, Grace!  For you have begun the work; and you must finish it.”

“Work?  What work?”

“I don’t know,” said Tom.  “How should I?  I want you to tell me that.”

She looked up in his face, puzzled.  His old self-confident look seemed strangely past away.