"I must go and dress for dinner." _Her_ eyes are down now.

She looks pale and shamed.
"You have nothing to say, then ?" asks the professor, compelling himself to the question.
"About what ?" "Hardinge." The girl turns a white face to his.
"Will you then _compel_ me to marry him ?" says she.

"Am I"-- faintly--"nothing to you?
Nothing----" She seems to fade back from him in the growing uncertainty of the light into the shadow of the corner beyond.

Curzon makes a step towards her.
At this moment the door is thrown suddenly open, and a man--evidently a professional man--advances into the room.
"Sir Thaddeus," begins he, in a slow, measured way.
The professor stops dead short.

Even Perpetua looks amazed.
"I regret to be the messenger of bad news, sir," says the solemn man in black.