“Yes,” said Lefevre; “and she’s my sister.”

“Ah,” said the old doctor; “I fear my remark was rather unreserved.”

“It is true,” said Lefevre.

He left Dr Rippon, to seek his mother.  He found her excited and warm, and without a word to spare for him.

“You wanted,” said he, “some serious talk with me, mother?”

“Oh yes,” said she; “but I can’t talk seriously now:  I can scarcely talk at all.  But do you see how Nora and Julius are taken up with each other?  I never before saw such a pair of moonstruck mortals!  I believe I have heard of the moon having a magnetic influence on people:  do you think it has?  But he is a charming man!”—­glancing towards Julius—­“I’m more than half in love with him myself.  Now I must go.  Come quietly one afternoon, and then we can talk.”

Her son abstained from recounting, as he had proposed to himself, what he had heard from Dr Rippon:  he would reserve it for the quiet afternoon.  He took his leave almost immediately, bearing with him a deep impression—­like a strongly bitten etching wrought on his memory—­of his last glimpse of the drawing-room:  Nora and Julius set talking across a small table, and the tall, pale, gaunt figure of Dr Rippon approaching and stooping between them.  It seemed a sinister reminder of the words the old doctor had addressed to Julius,—­“A time will come when death will appear more beautiful and friendly and desirable than life!”

Chapter IV.

The Man of the Crowd.

In a few days Dr Lefevre found a quiet afternoon, and went and told his mother the story of the Spanish marquis which he had got from Dr Rippon.  She hailed the story with delight.  Courtney was a fascinating figure to her before:  it needed but that to clothe him with a complete romantic heroism; for, of course, she did not doubt that he was the son of the Spanish grandee.  She wished to put it to him at once whether he was not, but she was dissuaded by her son from mentioning the matter yet to either Julius or her daughter.

“If he wishes,” said Lefevre, “to keep it secret for some reason, it would be an impertinence to speak about it.  We shall, however, have a perfect right to ask him about himself if his attentions to Nora go on.”

Soon afterwards (it was really a fortnight; but in a busy life day melts into day with amazing rapidity), Lefevre was surprised at dinner, and somewhat irritated, by a letter from his mother.  She wrote that they had seen nothing of Julius Courtney for three or four days,—­which was singular, since for the past three or four weeks he had been a daily visitor; latterly he had begun to look fagged and ill, and it was possible he was confined to his room,—­though, after all, that was scarcely likely, for he had not answered a note of inquiry which she had sent.  She begged her son to call at his chambers, the more so as Nora was pining in Julius’s absence to a degree which made her mother very anxious.