so charged with cordial
impatience that it seemed the death-knell of his hope. He stepped inside
the room and closed the door, keeping his hand on the knob.

"Gertrude," he said, "you love that man!"

"Well, sir?"

"Do you confess it?" cried Richard.

"Confess it? Richard Clare, how dare you use such language? I'm in no
humor for a scene. Let me pass."

Gertrude was angry; but as for Richard, it may almost be said that he
was mad. "One scene a day is enough, I suppose," he cried. "What are
these tears about? Wouldn't he have you? Did he refuse you, as you
refused me? Poor Gertrude!"

Gertrude looked at him a moment with concentrated scorn. "You fool!" she
said, for all answer. She pushed his hand from the latch, flung open the
door, and moved rapidly away.

Left alone, Richard sank down on a sofa and covered his face with his
hands. It burned them, but he sat motionless, repeating to himself,
mechanically, as if to avert thought, "You fool! you fool!" At last he
got up and made his way out.

It seemed to Gertrude, for several hours after this scene, that she had
at this juncture a strong case against Fortune. It is not our purpose to
repeat the words which she had exchanged with Captain Severn. They had
come within a single step of an _eclaircissement_, and when but another
movement would have flooded their souls with light, some malignant
influence had seized them by the throats. Had they too much pride?--too
little imagination? We must content ourselves with this hypothesis.
Severn, then, had walked mechanically across the yard, saying to
himself, "She belongs to another"; and adding, as he saw Richard, "and
such another!" Gertrude had stood at her window, repeating, under her
breath, "He belongs to himself, himself alone." And as if this was not
enough, when misconceived, slighted, wounded, she had faced about to her
old, passionless, dutiful past, there on the path of retreat to this
asylum Richard Clare had arisen to forewarn her that she should find no
peace even at home. There was something in the violent impertinence of
his appearance at this moment which gave her a dreadful feeling that
fate was against her. More than this. There entered into her emotions a
certain minute particle of awe of the man whose passion was so
uncompromising. She felt that it was out of place any longer to pity
him. He was the slave of his passion; but his passion was strong. In her
reaction against the splendid civility of S