She saw distinctly the pale, worn face, the thin, almost colourless lips, drawn into a line that indicated profound sadness and a deep anxiety.

He was standing before the portrait of the lad, his elder brother, of whose history Mrs.Dexter had told her; the elder brother who, if he had not died, "in foreign parts," would have been the Marquess instead of the man who was gazing at the portrait.
Celia stood quite still, her eyes chained to the haggard face; she did not know whether to withdraw into the library or to pass softly behind him and reach the stairs; and while she was hesitating, the Marquess heaved a deep sigh, made a gesture as of a man beaten by some insoluble problem, and, turning, saw her.
He did not start--men of his class are taught to repress every sign of emotion--and he stood quite still, looking at her gravely, as if the sudden interruption of his train of absorbing thought had caused him to forget whom she might be; then, as if he had remembered, he came towards her and said: "You are Miss Grant, the librarian, I suppose ?" Even as she answered, "Yes, my lord," Celia noted the dull, toneless melancholy of his voice, the voice of a man to whom all things save one, whatever that might be, are but trivial and of no consequence.
"I am glad to see you," he said, with a little courtly inclination of his head, but certainly with no gladness in his voice.

"I hope you are comfortable here; that you find your work congenial ?" "Oh, yes, my lord," said Celia, and, unconsciously, her voice was pitched low, like his own; for, somehow or other, she felt as if she were in the presence of a deep grief, of an unnamed trouble.
"I am very glad," he said again.

"You are fond of books, I was told--I heard--I was given to understand.

The collection"-- he nodded towards the library--"is a good one, is it not ?" "A very good one," assented Celia; "it seems to me a magnificent library.