"Open the door," she said, "or I shall ring this bell and send for my father. He will know what to do."
Oliver gazed at her for a minute or two, then, with a smothered oath upon his lips, he turned slowly to the door and opened it. Before leaving the room, however, he said, in a voice half-stifled by impotent passion—
"Is this really your last word?"
"The last I shall ever speak to you," said Lesley, resolutely.
Then he went out, seizing his hat as he passed through the hall and made his way into the street. He did not notice, as he retired, that a woman's figure was only half-concealed behind the curtains that screened a door in the study, and that his interview with Lesley must therefore have had an unseen auditor. He forgot that Ethel and Rosalind waited for him above. He was mad with rage; deaf to all voices saving those of passion: blind to all sights save the visions that floated maddeningly before his eyes.
Mad, blind, deaf to reason as he was, he was obliged to come back to earth and its realities before very long. For he was stopped in the streets by rough hands: a hoarse, passionate voice uttered threats and curses in his ear; and he found himself face to face with his long-vanished and half-forgotten brother, Francis Trent.
CHAPTER XXIX.
BROTHERS.
"What do you want with me?" said Oliver trying to shake off the rude grasp.