Campbell and Mellot sat chatting still.
"Where is my brother ?" "Gone to bed, as some one else ought to be; for it is past twelve.

Is Vavasour come in yet ?" "No." "Very odd," said Claude; "I never saw him after I left you." "He said certainly that he was going to find you," said Campbell.
"There is no need for speculating," said Valencia quietly; "my sister has a note from Mr.Vavasour at Pen-y-gwryd." "Pen-y-gwryd ?" cried both men at once.
"Yes.

Major Campbell, I wish to show it to you." Valencia's tone and manner was significant enough to make Claude Mellot bid them both good-night.
When he had shut the door behind him, Valencia put the letter into the Major's hand.
He was too much absorbed in it to look up at her; but if he had done so, he would have been startled by the fearful capacity of passion which changed, for the moment, that gay Queen Whims into a terrible Roxana, as she stood, leaning against the mantelpiece, but drawn up to her full height, her lips tight shut, eyes which gazed through and through him in awful scrutiny, holding her very breath, while a nervous clutching of the little hand said, "If you have tampered with my sister's heart, better for you that you were dead!" He read it through, once, twice, with livid face; then clashed it on the floor.
"Fool!--cur!--liar!--she is as pure as God's sunlight." "You need not tell me that," said Valencia, through her closed teeth.
"Fool!--fool!" And then, in a moment, his voice changed from indignation to the bitterest self-reproach.
"And fool I; thrice fool! Who am I, to rail on him?
Oh God! what have I done ?" And he covered his face with his hands.
"What have you done ?" literally shrieked Valencia.
"Nothing that you or man can blame, Miss St.Just! Can you dream that, sinful as I am, I could ever harbour a thought toward her of which I should be ashamed before the angels of God ?" He looked up as he spoke, with an utter humility and an intense honesty, which unnerved her at once.
"Oh, my Saint Pere!" and she held out both her hands.

"Forgive me, if-- only for a moment--" "I am not your Saint Pere, nor any one's! I am a poor, weak, conceited, miserable man, who by his accursed impertinence has broken the heart of the being whom he loves best on earth." Valencia started: but ere she could ask for an explanation, he rejoined wildly-- "How is she?
Tell me only that, this once! Has it killed her?
Does she hate him ?" "Adores him more than ever.

Oh, Major Campbell! it is too piteous, too piteous." He covered his face with his hands, shuddering.