At last Christian came to him, slowly and with a dragging step, down the wide staircase.  Her face was white, her eyes were set in shadows.

“How is he?”

“Round the corner, I think.  We’ve wired for Mangan.”

“Christian, I want to explain—­I said nothing—­I never meant to annoy him, I began about you, and that—­that we loved each other.  For we do, Christian, don’t we?” He had her hands in his, he crushed them in his anxiety, his eyes implored her.  “Then suddenly he began to abuse me like a madman!  My religion, my politics, my treachery to my class—­I can’t tell you what he didn’t say!  And then he swore he’d rather see you dead than married to me.  I don’t know what I said—­nothing, I think; he began to look as if he were dying himself, and I rang the bell and bolted for you.”

“Poor boy!” said Christian.

He thought that her face as she looked at him was as it were the face of an angel, but the sorrow in it frightened him.

“Come into the study,” she said, freeing her hands from his grasp; “we can’t talk here.”

The study door was open; he followed her in silence, and, shutting the door, sat down beside her on the sofa.

“Larry, we’ve got to face it, you know; we’ve got to face it,” she began, and gave back to him her slender sensitive hand, as if to heal the wound of what the words implied.

“Face what?” said Larry, stubbornly, girding himself for resistance.

“Face delay—­opposition—­”

“I’ll face opposition as much as you like, but I won’t face delay!  Why should we?  We’re of age.  There’s nothing against me!”

Christian smiled faintly.

“Dear child, I know that.  It’s not the facts that are against us, it’s the fancies—­”

“I won’t be patronised!” said Larry, vehemently.  “I’m not your dear child!  I’m the man you’ve promised to marry!  No one’s fancies have a right to interfere with us!”

His arm was round her, and he felt her tremble.  He loosed her hand, and with his hand that had held it he turned her face to his.  Then he kissed her, many times, with an ever-growing abandonment as he felt the response that she tried in vain to withhold.

At length, in spite of him, she hid her face in his shoulder.

“No, Larry, no!” she gasped, her breath coming short.  “Dearest, don’t be cruel to me!  How can I keep that promise!  If you had seen Papa just now and Mother—­her terror and her helplessness!  How could I leave them?  Supposing that I defied him, and married you, and that he died in one of these furies!  Just think what that would be for us!”

“He wouldn’t die!” said Larry, obstinately.  “People don’t die as easy as all that!” he added, with a fierce thought of regret that Dick had not gone out in this latest storm.

“Listen,” said Christian, beseechingly.  “Don’t let us be in such a hurry.  Everything needn’t be settled at once.  We’ll ask Dr. Mangan how Papa is, and if there is real danger for him in these rages.  He was nearly as bad on Saturday after the Priest and the tenants had been here.”