Ian Belward now. A groan escaped Lady Belward.

"And now--now, what will you do?" asked the baronet.

"I do not know. I am going back first to Andree." Sir William's face was
ashy.

"Impossible!"

"I promised, and I will go back." Lady Belward's voice quivered:

"Stay, ah, stay, and redeem the past! You can, you can outlive it."

Always the same: live it down!

"It is no use," he answered; "I must return."

Then in a few words he thanked them for all, and bade them good-bye.
He did not offer his hand, nor did they. But at the door he heard Lady
Belward say in a pleading voice:

"Gaston!"

He returned. She held out her hand.

"You must not do as your father did," she said. "Give the woman up, and
come back to us. Am I nothing to you--nothing?"

"Is there no other way?" he asked, gravely, sorrowfully.

She did not reply. He turned to his grandfather. "There is no other
way," said the old man, sternly. Then in a voice almost shrill with
pain and indignation, he cried out as he had never done in his
life: "Nothing, nothing, nothing but disgrace! My God in heaven! a
lion-tamer--a gipsy! An honourable name dragged through the mire! Go
back," he said grandly; "go back to the woman and her lions--savages,
savages, savages!"

"Savages after the manner of our forefathers," Gaston answered quietly.
"The first Gaston showed us the way. His wife was a strolling player's
daughter. Good-bye, sir."

Lady Belward's face was in her hands. "Good-bye-grandmother," he said at
the door, and then he was gone.

At the outer door the old housekeeper stepped forward, her gloomy face
most agitated.

"Oh, sir, oh, sir, you will come back again? Oh, don't go like your
father!"

He suddenly threw an arm about her shoulder, and kissed her on the
cheek.

"I'll come back--yes I'll come back here--if I can. Good-bye, Hovey."

In the library Sir William and Lady Belward sat silent for a time.
Presently Sir William rose, and walked up and down. He paused at last,
and said, in a strange, hesitating voice, his hands chafing each other:

"I forgot myself, my dear. I fear I was violent. I would like to ask his
pardon. Ah, yes, yes!"

Then he sat down and took her hand, and held it long in the silence.

"It all feels so empty--so empty," she said at last, as the tower-clock
struck hollow on the air.

The old man could not reply, but he drew her close to him, and Hovey,
from the door, saw his tears dropping on her white hair.