Livingstone drew back into the farthest shadow of the garden trees.  He knew how much reason Cyril had for hating him above all living men, and he did not wish to risk a meeting.  Mohun’s warning shot across his mind, and he felt it was rightly founded.

Brandon looked out for some minutes without moving, then he dropped his head suddenly on his arms with a heavy groan.  The bright light was behind him, and Guy could see his clasped fingers twisting and tearing at each other, as if he wished to distract mental agony by the sense of bodily pain.  The gazer saw that another besides himself had given up all hope; and, with a heavier heart than over, he stole away home—­not to sleep, but to think, and wait for the morning.

About noon next day the expected message came: 

“DEAR GUY,—­I have got leave to see you at last, but it was very difficult to gain.  It is only on these conditions:  you are not to stay with me a moment beyond three hours, and you must leave Ventnor immediately afterward, and not return.  I have promised all for you.  It seems very hard; but we must not think of that now.  Come directly.  C.B.”

Ten minutes later there was only a closed door between Livingstone, and the interview he longed for and dreaded so much.  His steel nerves stood him in good stead then; it was not at the crisis that these were likely to fail.  When Constance heard his step, it was measured and firmly planted as she always remembered it.  So it would have been if he had been walking to meet the fire of a platoon.  Her aunt, Mrs. Vavasour, was with her, but left the room, as Guy opened the door, and so they met again as they had parted—­alone.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

     “I charge thee, by the living’s prayer,
       By the dead’s silentness,
     To wring from out thy soul a cry
       That God may hear and bless;
     Lest heaven’s own palm fade in my hand,
     And, pale among the saints I stand
       A saint companionless.”

Constance was lying on a couch near the fire propped up by many pillows.  She felt weaker than usual:  what she had gone through in the morning had exhausted her.  Guy never knew, till long after, that the effort she had made to secure the meeting with him had, in all human probability, shortened her life by weeks.  She thought it cheaply purchased at that price—­and she was right.  Even the excitement of the moment had hardly brought a tinge of color into the pure waxen cheeks, but the beautiful clear eyes were more brilliant than ever.  A ribbon of the blue which was Guy’s favorite was twisted in her bright glossy hair.

He saw nothing of this at first; he did not see her raise herself with a faint joyful cry as he advanced with his eyes cast down; he never knew how it was that he found himself kneeling by Constance, with her arms clinging fondly round his neck, and her voice murmuring in his ear, “I said you would come—­I knew you would come.”