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Molly lay quite still for some time, her young face drawn and stricken.

At length she got up and went to the window. It was a morning of bleak winds and shifting clouds. The sea was just visible, very far and dim and grey. She stood a long while gazing stonily out.

“Can I get you anything, darling?” said Mrs. Langdale’s voice softly behind her.

“No, thank you,” the girl said, without turning. “Please leave me; that’s all!”

And Mrs. Langdale crept away through the hushed house to her own apartment, there to lay down her head and cry herself exhausted. Dear, gallant Charlie! Her heart ached for him. His irrepressible gaiety, his reckless generosity, these had become the attributes of a hero for ever in her eyes.

After a while her hostess came to her, pale and tearful, to beg her, if she possibly could, to show herself at the breakfast table. Captain Fisher had repeatedly asked for her, she said; and he seemed very uneasy.

Mrs. Langdale rose, washed her face, and made an effort to powder away the evidence of her grief. Then she went bravely down and faced the silent crowd in the breakfast room. No one was eating anything. The very air smote chill and cheerless as she entered. As if he had been lying in wait for her, Fisher pounced upon her on the threshold.

“I must speak to you for a moment,” he said. “Come into the smoking-room!”

Mrs. Langdale accompanied him without a word.

“How is she?” he demanded, almost before they entered. “How did she take it?”

There was something about Fisher just then with which Mrs. Langdale was wholly unacquainted. He was alert, impatient, almost feverish. She answered him with brevity.

“I think she is stunned by the news.”

He began to pace to and fro with heavy restlessness.

“Ask her to come to me if she is up!” he said at length. “Tell her–tell her not to be afraid! Say I am waiting for her. I must see her.”

Mrs. Langdale hesitated.

“She asked me to leave her alone,” she said irresolutely.

Fisher wheeled swiftly round.

“I don’t think she will refuse to see me,” he said. “At least try!”

There was entreaty in his voice, urgent entreaty, which Mrs. Langdale found herself unable to withstand.

She departed therefore on her thankless errand and Fisher flung himself down at the table with his face buried in his hands. In this room but a few short hours ago Charlie had faced and turned away his anger with all the courage and sweetness which, combined, had made of him the hero he was.

It seemed to Fisher, looking back upon the interview, that the boy had done a braver thing, had offered a sacrifice more splendid, there, in that room, than any he had done or offered a little later down on the howling shore.

There came a slight sound at the door and Fisher jerked himself upright. Molly had entered softly. She was standing, looking at him with a strange species of wonder on her white face. He rose instantly and went to meet her.

“I have something to give you, Molly,” he said. She raised her eyes questioningly.

“It was brought to me,” he said, controlling his voice to quietness with a strong effort, “after Mrs. Langdale went to tell you of–what had happened. I wish to give it to you myself. And–afterwards to ask you a question.”

“What is it?” Molly asked, with a sudden sharp eagerness.

“A note,” Fisher said, and gave her a folded paper. “It was found on his dressing-table, addressed to you. His servant brought it to me.”

Molly’s hand trembled as she took the missive.

Fisher turned away from her, and stood before the window in dead silence. There was a long, quiet pause. Then a sudden sound made him swing swiftly round and stride to the door to turn the key. The next moment he was stooping over Molly, who had sunk down on the hearth-rug and was sobbing terrible, anguished sobs.