Meanwhile, Mrs. Sandford, who had followed the infuriated man, though necessarily at some distance, came and grasped his arm.

“The man who seized the money is gone,” she said.  “This is the one who takes his place.”

Sandford was speechless,—­but not long.  While hope remained, he had whined, begged, cried, implored.  Now that he was baffled, discomfited, ruined, his rage broke out.  The placid gentleman, whose glossy garb and quiet air a day before made such a picture of content, would hardly be recognized in this furious, gesticulating lunatic, whose oaths and objurgations came belching forth like sulphurous flames.  It was on his gentle sister-in-law that the weight of his wrath fell.  She tried to pacify him, until she became actually alarmed for her safety, and turned to fly.

“Go!” he exclaimed.  “You’ve done enough.  You’ve ruined me.  Pack off!  You’ve beggared me.  Now look out for yourself!  Don’t let me see your face again!”

Trembling and tearful, Mrs. Sandford went to her room to gather her wardrobe.  She had not intended to remain a burden upon her brother-in-law.  Now she must go at once.  Even if he were to repent of his blind rage and ask her forgiveness, she felt that there was an impassable gulf between them.

During the confusion that followed, Number Two, feeling hungry, went down with Biddy to lunch.

“It’s about the last ov it here, Sirr,” said the girl, “an’ we may as well ate what is good and drink something betther than cold wather.”

So saying, the best the house afforded was set out;—­wines of rare vintages were uncorked, and glasses hob-a-nobbed.

Mr. Sandford, exhausted with his delirium, went to his room, and there languidly paced the floor back and forth, without cessation, like a caged white bear in midsummer.  Charles crawled up to his own bed.  Marcia remained in the parlor, her busy brain turning over the unusual events of the day, and wondering what loop-hole of escape from their present difficulties could be found.

CHAPTER XXI.

The door-bell rang.  Biddy, occupied with her pleasing duties as hostess, and flushed with drinking crusty old Port and “Lafitte 1844,” did not hear.  Some sudden impulse or vague prescience moved Marcia to open the door herself.  It was Greenleaf.  Notwithstanding the untoward state of affairs, she could not deny herself the pleasure of meeting him, and ushered him into the parlor, then fortunately vacant.

A cooler observer would have noticed something peculiar in his carriage as he crossed the hall,—­an unnatural pallor, a sharpness in the angles of his mouth, a quicker respiration, and a look of mingled firmness and sorrow in his eyes.  A stranger might have thought him in a state of chronic nervous irritability or mild insanity.  And truly, a sensitive man, perplexed between conflicting duties, spurred by conscience, yet wanting in courage to do its bidding, presents a pitiable spectacle; it is a position of sharp suspense which no mind can hold long;—­relief must come, in heartbreak or darkness, if in no other way.