“I did not mean to keep anything from you,” he said in a low voice, bending to her.  “I know—­you admired him—­that he had given you cause.  But—­my mind has been on fire—­ever since I came back from those Damesley scenes!”

She offered no reply.  Silence fell upon all three for a minute or two; and in the twilight each could hardly distinguish the others.  Every now and then the passionate tears rose in Marcella’s eyes; her heart contracted.  That very night when he spoke to her, when he used all those big words to her about his future, those great ends for which he had claimed her woman’s help—­he had these things in his mind.

“I think,” said Louis Craven presently, touching her gently on the arm—­he had tried once in vain to attract her attention—­“I think I hear some one asking for you outside on the landing—­Mrs. Hurd seems to be bringing them in.”

As he spoke, Anthony suddenly sprang to his feet, and the outer door opened.

“Louis!” cried Anthony, “it is he!”

“Are yer at home, miss?” said Minta Hurd, putting in her head; “I can hardly see, it’s so dark.  Here’s a gentleman wants to see you.”

As she spoke, Wharton passed her, and stood—­arrested—­by the sight of the three figures.  At the same moment Mrs. Hurd lit the gas in the little passage.  The light streamed upon his face, and showed him the identity of the two men standing beside Marcella.

Never did Marcella forget that apparition—­the young grace and power of the figure—­the indefinable note of wreck, of catastrophe—­the Lucifer brightness of the eyes in the set face.  She moved forward.  Anthony stopped her.

“Good-night, Miss Boyce!”

She shook hands unconsciously with him and with Louis.  The two Cravens turned to the door.  Wharton advanced into the room, and let them pass.

“You have been in a hurry to tell your story!” he said, as Louis walked by him.

Contemptuous hate breathed from every feature, but he was perfectly self-controlled.

“Yes—­” said Craven, calmly—­“Now it is your turn.”

The door was no sooner shut than Wharton strode forward and caught her hand.

“They have told you everything?  Ah!—­”

His eye fell upon the evening paper.  Letting her go, he felt for a chair and dropped into it.  Throwing himself back, his hands behind his head, he drew a long breath and his eyes closed.  For the first time in his life or hers she saw him weak and spent like other men.  Even his nerve had been worn down by the excitement of these five fighting hours.  The eyes were lined and hollow—­the brow contracted; the young roundness of the cheek was lost in the general pallor and patchiness of the skin; the lower part of the face seemed to have sharpened and lengthened,—­and over the whole had passed a breath of something aging and withering the traces of which sent a shiver through Marcella.  She sat down near him, still in her nurse’s cloak, one trembling hand upon her lap.