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288 Suddenly a sullen calmness settled upon the young fellow—a calm which spoke of some fierce determination.

"I don't know why I should have broken out like this before you," he said. "Seeing you here when I expected to fight it out alone, surprised me into it. But there is one thing I am going to do. I'll hear the truth from her own lips. When you go home I will go with you. They wont turn me back then, and I'll see her face to face."

"I——" began Ffrench, and then added, completely overwhelmed, "Very—perhaps it would be—be best."

"Best!" echoed Murdoch, with another laugh. "No, it won't be best; it will be worst; but I'll do it for all that."

And he dropped his head upon the arms he had folded on the chair's back, and so sat in a forlorn, comfortless posture, not speaking, not stirring, as if he did not know that there was any presence in the room but his own.

And he kept his word. As Ffrench was going out into the street at dusk he felt a touch on his shoulder, and turning, found Murdoch close behind him.

"I'm ready," he said, "if you are."

When they reached the house, the man who opened the door stared at them blankly, which so irritated Ffrench that he found an excuse for administering a sharp rebuke to him about some trifle.

"They are always making some stupid blunder," he said to Murdoch as they passed upstairs to the drawing-room.

But Murdoch did not hear.

It was one of the occasions on which Rachel Ffrench reached her highest point of beauty. Her black velvet dress was almost severe in its simplicity, and her one ornament was the jewelled star in her high coiffure. M. St. Méran held his place at her side. He received Murdoch with empressement and exhibited much tact and good