“O Julius!” said she.  “Are you afraid of me?  How can I harm you?”

“Nora, my life!  I am afraid of myself!  You would not harm me, but I would harm you!  Ah, I know it now only too well!”

Then, as she closed her eyes again, she said, “I had better die!”

“No, you must not die!” he exclaimed.  “Your time is not yet!  Yes, you will live!—­live!  But I must be cut off—­though not for ever—­from the sweetest and dearest, the noblest and purest of all God’s creatures!”

In the meantime Lefevre had been examining his sister with closer scrutiny.  He raised her eyelid and looked at her eye; he pricked her on the arm and wrist; and then he turned to Julius.

“Julius,” said he, “what does this mean?”

“It means,” answered Julius, covering his face with his hands, “that I am of all living things the most accurst!” Then with a cry of horror and anguish he fled from the room and down the stairs.

Lady Lefevre followed him in a flutter of fear.  Presently she returned, and said, in answer to a look from her son, “He snatched his hat and coat, and was gone before I came up with him.”

Without a word Lefevre set himself to recover his sister, and in half an hour she was well enough to walk with Lady Mary’s assistance to bed.

The guests, meanwhile, had departed, all but two or three intimates; and in less than an hour Dr Lefevre was returning home in the Fane carriage.  Lord Rivercourt and he talked of the strange events of the evening, while Lady Mary leaned back and half-absently listened.  They were proceeding thus along Piccadilly, when she suddenly caught the doctor’s arm and exclaimed—­

“Oh!  Look!  The very man I met in the Park!  I am sure of it!  I can never forget the face!”

Lefevre, alert on the instant, looked to recognise Hernando Courtney, the Man of the Crowd:  he saw only the back of a person in a loose cape and a slouch hat turning in at the gateway of the Albany courtyard.  In flashes of reflection these questions arose:  Who could he be but Hernando Courtney?—­and where could he be going but to Julius’s chambers?  Julius, therefore (whose own conduct had been that night so extraordinary), must be familiar with his whole mysterious course, and consequently with the peril he was in.  Before Lefevre could out of his perplexity snatch a resolution, Lord Rivercourt had pulled the cord to stop the coachman.  The coachman, however, having received orders to drive home, was driving at a goodly pace, and it was only on a second summons through the cord that he slackened speed, and obeyed his master’s direction to “draw up by the kerb.”

“I’ll get out,” said Lefevre, “and look after him.  You’d better get Mary home; she’s not very strong yet, and she has been upset to-night.”

He put himself thus forward for another reason besides,—­on the impulse of his friendship for Julius, without considering whether in the event of an arrest and an exposure, he could do anything to shield Julius from shame and pain.