tream. And, all in a moment, he had become his enemy's
proxy--his representative--in the last and tenderest service that man
can render to man. He had played the part of son to Falloden's dying
father--had prayed for him from the depths of his heart, tortured with
pity. And when Falloden came, with what strange eyes they had looked at
each other!--as though all veils had dropped--all barriers had, for the
moment, dropped away.

"Shall I hate him again to-morrow?" thought Radowitz. "Or shall I be
more sorry for him than for myself? Yes, that's what I felt!--so
marvellously!"

So that when he went to Constance with his news, and under the emotion
of it, saw the girl's heart unveiled--"I was not jealous," he thought.
"I just wanted to give her everything!"

Yet, as the night passed on, and that dreary moment of the first
awakening earth arrived, when all the griefs of mankind weigh heaviest,
he was shaken anew by gusts of passion and despair; and this time for
himself. Suppose--for in spite of all Sorell's evasions and
concealments, he knew very well that Sorell was anxious about him, and
the doctors had said ugly things--suppose he got really ill?--suppose he
died, without having lived?

He thought of Constance in the moonlit garden, her sweetness, her
gratefulness to him for coming, her small, white "flower-face," and the
look in her eyes.

"If I might--only once--have kissed her--have held her in my arms!" he
thought, with anguish. And rolling on his face, he lay prone, fighting
his fight alone, till exhaustion conquered, and "he took the gift
of sleep."

CHAPTER XV

Douglas Falloden was sitting alone in his father's library surrounded by
paper and documents. He had just concluded a long interview with the
family lawyer; and a tray containing the remains of their hasty luncheon
was on a side-table. The room had a dusty, dishevelled air. Half of the
house-servants had been already dismissed; the rest were disorganised.
Lady Laura had left Flood the day before. To her son's infinite relief
she had consented to take the younger children and go on a long visit to
some Scotch relations. It had been left vague whether she returned to
Flood or not; but Douglas hoped that the parting was already
over--without her knowing it; and that he should be able to persuade
her, after Scotland, to go straight to the London house--which was her
own property--for the winter.

Meanwhile he himself had been doing his best to wi