"Then for heaven's sake do it at once, and have it over. Don't stay
here by yourself any longer, whatever you do. Go to-morrow."

"Yes," said Dartmouth, "I will go to-morrow."




XIII.


When Dartmouth entered the drawing-room at Rhyd-Alwyn the next
evening, a half hour after his arrival, he found Sir Iltyd alone, and
received a warm greeting.

"My dear boy," the old gentleman exclaimed, "I am delighted to see
you. It seems an age since you left, and your brief reports of
your ill-health have worried me. As for poor Weir, she has been ill
herself. She looks so wretched that I would have sent for a physician
had she not, in her usual tyrannical fashion, forbidden me. I did not
tell her you were expected to-night; I wanted to give her a pleasant
surprise. Here she is now."

The door was pushed open and Weir entered the room. Dartmouth checked
an involuntary exclamation and went forward to meet her. She had on a
long white gown like that she had worn the morning he had asked her to
marry him, but the similarity of dress only served to accentuate the
change the intervening time had wrought. It was not merely that
she had lost her color and that her face was haggard; it was an