She was silent some moments, her eyes resting on him with that grave and
luminous regard which no man had ever changed to one more tender or
less calmly contemplative. He had risen again, and paced to and fro the
narrow chamber; his head bent down, his chest rising and falling with
the labored, quickened breath. He had thought that the hour in which
his brother's ingratitude had pierced his heart had been the greatest
suffering he had ever known, or ever could know; but a greater had
waited on him here, in the fate to which the jeweled toy that he had
lifted from the water had accidentally led him, not dreaming to what he
came.
"Lord Royallieu," she said softly, at length, while she rose and moved
toward him, the scarlet of the trailing cashmeres gathering dark, ruby
lights in them as they caught sun and shadow; and at the old name,
uttered in her voice, he started, and turned, and looked at her as
though he saw some ghost of his past life rise from its grave. "Why look
at me so?" she pursued ere he could speak. "Act how you will, you cannot
change the fact that you are the bearer of your father's title. So long
as you live, your brother Berkeley can never take it legally. You may
be a Chasseur of the African Army, but none the less are you a Peer of
England."
"What means that?" he muttered. "Why tell me that? I have said I am
dead. Leave me buried here, and let him enjoy what he may--what he can."
"But this is folly--madness----"
"No; it is neither.
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