Night had fallen; the wind was rising without, and seemed to rustle and whistle in the draughty passages of the old house.  Thalassa placed one lamp at the head of the stairs, and others in the niches of the passage, where they flickered feebly and diffused a feeble light.  Halfway down the passage he paused before a closed door.  It was the room in which Sisily’s mother had died.  With an expressionless face he went in and left the last lamp burning dimly on the mantelpiece, like a votary candle on an altar of the dead.  Issuing forth again he cast a look around him and walked to Robert Turold’s study at the end of the passage.  The door was closed, but he opened it and entered.

Robert Turold was busily engaged writing at a large table by the light of a swinging lamp.  He looked up from his papers as Thalassa entered, and thoughtfully watched him as he trimmed the lamp and tended the fire.  With these duties completed Thalassa still lingered, as though he expected his master to speak.

“What’s the glass like to-night, Thalassa?” remarked Robert Turold absently.

The allusion was to a weather glass which hung in the hall downstairs.  As a topic of conversation it was as useful to master and servant as the weather is to most English people.  That is to say, it helped them when they were wordbound.

“Going down fast,” replied Thalassa.

“Then I suppose we are in for another rough night.”

“The glass is always going down in Cornwall, and we are always in for another rough night,” responded the servitor curtly.  “Are you going to stay much longer in the forsaken hole?”

“Not much longer,” replied his master in a mild tone.

“It is, perhaps, a dreary spot to you, but not to me—­no, never to me.  The last link in my long search has been found here—­hidden away in this little out-of-the-way Cornish place.  Think of that, Thalassa!  I shall be Lord Turrald.”

“I don’t see what good it will do you,” retorted the man austerely.  “You’ve spent a mint of money over it.  I suppose that’s your own affair, though.  But what’s to come next?  That’s what I want to know.”

“When I leave Cornwall—­”

“You mean we, don’t you?” Thalassa interrupted.

“Of course I mean you as well as myself,” Robert Turold replied almost humbly.  “I should be sorry to part with you, Thalassa, you must be well aware of that.  It is my intention to purchase a portion of the family estate at Great Missenden, which is at present in the market, and spend the remainder of my life in the place which once belonged to my ancestors.  That has been the dream of my life, and I shall soon be able to carry it out.”

A silence fell between them upon this statement, and Robert Turold’s eyes turned towards his papers again.  But Thalassa stood watching him, as though he had something on his mind still.  He brought it out abruptly—­

“And what about your daughter?”