n."

I closed my eyes for a moment, and a hand seemed to tighten about my
heart. Then I said:

"I speak without reference to my parents. In such a matter I judge for
myself."

"Always the same answer?"

"Always the same, Sir Peter."

"It would be most ungentlemanly to press the subject any further." His
eyes were fixed upon me with the same cold, snake-like smile. "I will
not be guilty of such a solecism. Your family affections, my dear young
lady, are strong, I should suppose. Which--whom do you love best?"

Surprised at the blunt straightforwardness of the question, as coming
from him, I replied thoughtlessly, "Oh, my sister Adelaide."

"Indeed! I should imagine she was in every way worthy the esteem of so
disinterested a person as yourself. A different disposition,
though--quite. Will you allow me to touch your hand before I retire?"

Trembling with uneasy forebodings roused by his continual sneering
smile, and the peculiar evil light in his eyes, I yet went through with
my duty to the end. He took the hand I extended, and raised it to his
lips with a low bow.

"Good-evening, Miss Wedderburn."

Faintly returning his valediction, I saw him go away, and then in a
dream, a maze, a bewilderment, I too turned slowly away and walked to
the house again. I felt, I knew I had behaved well and discreetly, but I
had no confidence whatever that the matter was at an end.

CHAPTER III.

"Lucifer, Star of the Morning! How art thou fallen!"

I found myself, without having met any one of my family, in my own room,
in the semi-darkness, seated on a chair by my bedside, unnerved, faint,
miserable with a misery such as I had never felt before. The window was
open, and there came up a faint scent of sweetbrier and wall-flowers in
soft, balmy gusts, driven into the room by the April night wind. There
rose a moon and flooded the earth with radiance. Then came a sound of
footsteps; the door of the next room, that belonging to Adelaide, was
opened. I heard her come in, strike a match, and light her candle; the
click of the catch as the blind rolled down. There was a door between
her room and mine, and presently she passed it, and bearing a candle in
her hand, stood in my presence. My sister was very beautiful, very
proud. She was cleverer, stronger, more decided than I, or rather, while
she had those qualities very strongly developed, I was almost without
them. She always held her head up, and had one of those majesti