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“Not to me,” she answered with sudden tenderness. “To me you are the best, the noblest of men; why will you run yourself down?”

“I won’t again,” he answered. “Now let us to business. Have you told your father yet that you have promised to be my wife?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Why do you say ‘yes’ in that dismal way? Is he not glad? Will he not welcome me as a son-in-law after his own heart? A little talk will reassure him on many subjects. When can I have it?”

“Never, I fear, Adrian; he is too ill.”

“Well, then, I take you without his leave.”

“That’s just it,” replied Nance, speaking with hesitation and distress. “You know, Adrian, how he began by taking a wonderful fancy to you. During all the six years of our residence in this dismal old Grange you are the only stranger who has set foot across our threshold. Father liked you to come—he liked to talk to you—he liked to talk of you when you went away. It comforted me immeasurably to feel that you and father suited each other. When I saw that you loved me I was more glad than I can say, to feel assured on the point of father also being tolerant to you. Well, things have changed. The dreadful change took place after your last visit. When you were gone, when you shut the hall-door behind you, I found father in a state of strange and nervous excitement. He was pacing up and down the room, clasping and unclasping his hands and muttering to himself. I really had not the least idea what it all meant. He kept saying under his breath: ‘Suspected—yes, suspected—there is a likeness—there is a possibility of my search being terminated.’ Oh, he has a secret, Adrian, but I don’t want to go into that now, and I thought his poor brain was turned and that he was off his head, and I went to him quite tenderly and touched him on his arm, and said, ‘Sit down, calm yourself.’”