er. "Let him alone!" I whispered
hoarsely. "I will go away. Don't you see that he is resting."

She took no notice of me, nor of my backward movement, but leaned over
towards him as though to touch his arm. A sort of fury came upon me.
I knew that the Paul whom she was trying to recall from the land of
unconsciousness would never again be the Paul of the past. Father
Adrian had kept his word. The blow which he had threatened had fallen.
Paul! I looked at your dear bowed head until the tears dimmed my eyes,
and the great room swam around me. For in my heart I felt that it was
I who had brought this thing upon you; I who could have saved you by a
single word.

"Paul, wake up! It is I, your mother."

I snatched hold of her hand, and drew it away. "Let him rest," I
cried, fiercely. "He will waken soon enough."

She looked at me in dignified astonishment. "How dare you presume to
dictate to me in this fashion?" she exclaimed. "And why should he not
be awakened? It is past mid-day. Paul!"

The crouching figure moved. He had heard, then! I held my breath,
longing to escape, yet compelled to watch with fascinated eyes the
rising of that bowed head. There was no start, or hurried awakening,
if indeed he had been asleep at all. He simply turned his head, and
looked at us with surprise, without any emotion of any sort.

I hid my face in my hands, and sobbed. Lady de Vaux was silent with
horror. For there was something inexpressibly, awfully moving in the
silent, passionless sorrow which seemed written with an unsparing
hand onto that white face. All combativeness had passed away, but
resignation had not come to take its place. And, apart from the
outward evidence of the agony through which he had passed, its
physical traces were very apparent. Deep, black lines seemed furrowed
into the flesh under his dull eyes, and the firm, handsome mouth was
drawn and quivering. It was such a change as might have been worked by
some deadly Eastern poison, eating away the corporal frame. To think
that it had worked from within--that burning and terrible sorrow had
caused it--was horrible.

Lady de Vaux was the first to speak. The icy composure of her manner
was gone. Her voice was strained and anxious.

"Why, Paul, what have you been doing here all night? Do you know that
it is past mid-day? Has anything happened? Are you ill?"

"Ill? No; I think not." He seemed to be speaking from a great way
off. Nothing about him was natural. He wa