“May I speak to you, miss?” said a voice at the door.

Marcella rose hastily.  Her mother’s maid was standing there.

She hurried across the room.

“What is the matter, Deacon?”

“Your mother says, miss,” said the maid, retreating into the hall, “I am to tell you she can’t come down.  Your father is ill, and she has sent for Dr. Clarke.  But you are please not to go up.  Will you give the gentlemen their tea, and she will come down before they go, if she can.”

Marcella had turned pale.

“Mayn’t I go, Deacon?  What is it?”

“It’s a bad fit of pain, your mother says, miss.  Nothing can be done till the doctor comes.  She begged particular that you wouldn’t go up, miss.  She doesn’t want any one put out.”

At the same moment there was a ring at the outer door.

“Oh, there is Aldous,” cried Marcella, with relief, and she ran out into the hall to meet him.

CHAPTER III.

Aldous advanced into the inner hall at sight of Marcella, leaving his companions behind in the vestibule taking off their coats.  Marcella ran to him.

“Papa is ill!” she said to him hastily.  “Mamma has sent for Dr. Clarke.  She won’t let me go up, and wants us to take no notice and have tea without her.”

“I am so sorry!  Can we do anything?  The dogcart is here with a fast horse.  If your messenger went on foot—­”

“Oh, no! they are sure to have sent the boy on the pony.  I don’t know why, but I have had a presentiment for a long time past that papa was going to be ill.”

She looked white and excited.  She had turned back to the drawing-room, forgetting the other guests, he walking beside her.  As they passed along the dim hall, Aldous had her hand close in his, and when they passed under an archway at the further end he stooped suddenly in the shadows and kissed the hand.  Touch—­kiss—­had the clinging, the intensity of passion.

They were the expression of all that had lain vibrating at the man’s inmost heart during the dark drive, while he had been chatting with his two companions.

“My darling!  I hope not.  Would you rather not see strangers?  Shall I send Hallin and young Leven away?  They would understand at once.”

“Oh, no!  Mr. Wharton is here anyway—­staying.  Where is Mr. Hallin?  I had forgotten him.”

Aldous turned and called.  Mr. Hallin and young Frank Leven, divining something unusual, were looking at the pictures in the hall.

Edward Hallin came up and took Marcella’s offered hand.  Each looked at the other with a special attention and interest.  “She holds my friend’s life in her hands—­is she worthy of it?” was naturally the question hanging suspended in the man’s judgment.  The girl’s manner was proud and shy, the manner of one anxious to please, yet already, perhaps, on the defensive.