It is a brilliant moonlight night; the very stars shine with redoubled glory; the chaste Diana, riding high in the heavens, casts over "tower and stream" and spreading parks "a flood of silver sheen;" the whole earth seems bright as gaudy day.
Beneath, in the shrubberies, pacing to and fro, are Molly and Philip Shadwell, evidently in earnest conversation. Philip at least seems painfully intent and eager. They have stopped, as if by one impulse, and now he has taken her hand. She hardly rebukes him; her hand lies passive within his; and now,—now, with a sudden movement, he has placed his arm around her waist.
"Honor or no honor," says Luttrell, fiercely, "I will see it out with her now."
Drawing a deep breath, he folds his arms and leans against the window, full of an agonized determination to know the worst.
Molly has put up her hand and laid it on Philip's chest, as though expostulating, but makes no vehement effort to escape from his embrace. Philip, his face lit up with passionate admiration, is gazing down into the lovely one so near him, that scarcely seems to shrink from his open homage. The merciless, cruel moon, betrays them all too surely.
Luttrell's pulses are throbbing wildly, while his heart has almost ceased to beat. Half a minute—that is a long hour—passes thus; a few more words from Philip, an answer from Molly. Oh, that he could hear! And then Shadwell stoops until, from where Luttrell stands, his face seems to grow to hers.
Tedcastle's teeth meet in his lip as he gazes spell-bound. A cold shiver runs through him, as when one learns that all one's dearest, most cherished hopes are trampled in the dust. A faint moisture stands on his brow. It is the bitterness of death!
Presently a drop of blood trickling slowly down—the sickly flavor of it in his mouth—rouses him. Instinctively he closes his eyes, as though too late to strive to shut out the torturing sight, and, with a deep curse, he presses his handkerchief to his lips and moves away as one suddenly awakened from a ghastly dream.
In the doorway he meets Marcia; she, too, has been a witness of the garden scene, and as he passes her she glances up at him with a curious smile.
"If you wish to keep her you should look after her," she whispers, with white lips.