"And Aileen?" Col. Jocyln's face turned dark and rigid as iron as he spoke his daughter's name.
Rupert Thetford turned away his changing face, quite ghastly now.
"It shall be as she says. Aileen is too noble and just herself not to honor me for doing right."
"It shall be as I say," returned Col. Jocyln, with a voice that rang and an eye that flashed. "My daughter comes of a proud and stainless race, and never shall she mate with one less stainless. Hear me out, young man. It won't do to fire up—plain words are best suited to a plain case. All that has passed betwixt you and Miss Jocyln must be as if it had never been. The heir of Thetford Towers, honorably born, I consented she should marry; but, dearly as I love her, I would see her dead at my feet before she should mate with one who was nameless and impoverished. You said just now the atonement was yours—you said right; go, and never return."
He pointed to the door; the young man, stonily still, took his hat.
"Will you not permit your daughter, Col. Jocyln, to speak for herself?" he said, at the door.
"No, sir. I know my daughter—my proud, high-spirited Aileen—and my answer is hers. I wish you good-night."
He swung round abruptly, turning his back upon his visitor. Rupert Thetford, without one word, turned and walked out of the house.
The bewildering rapidity of the shocks he had received had stunned him—he could not feel the pain now. There was a dull sense of aching torture over him from head to foot—but the acute edge was dulled; he walked along through the black night like a man drugged and stupefied. He was only conscious intensely of one thing—a wish to get away, never to set foot in St. Gosport again.
Like one walking in his sleep, he reached Thetford Towers, his old home, every tree and stone of which was dear to him. He entered at once, passed into the drawing-room, and found Guy, the artist, sitting before the fire staring blankly into the coals, and May Everard roaming restlessly up and down, the firelight falling dully on her black robes and pale, tear-stained face. Both started at his entrance—all wet, and wild, and haggard; but neither spoke. There was that in his face which froze the words on their lips.