"Who has won?" was her first question. She wondered afterwards that it should have been so.
"The allies," answered Harry, quietly. "I am Sir Edward's prisoner."
"A prisoner whom I yield to my sister, to be disposed of at her pleasure," said Edward, coming forward; and Celia, turning from Harry, greeted and thanked the real brother cordially, though a little shyly.
"Have you seen Philip?" she asked of both. Her apprehensions were beginning to subside.
We rarely know the supreme moments of our lives till they are past. We open laughing the letter which contains awful tidings; we look up brightly to see the unclosing of the door—
"Which lets in on us such disabling news,
We ever after have been graver."[[15]]
It was with a lightened heart, and almost a smile, that Celia asked if her brothers (as she considered both) had seen Philip; and full of apprehension as her heart had been all day, she did not guess the answer from the dead silence that ensued.
Harry was the first to speak, and he addressed himself to Sir Edward. "You, or I?" was his enigmatical question.
"You," answered Edward, shortly.
"Celia, darling!" began Harry, looking back at her with deep compassion in his eyes; and he got no further. And then she knew.