One evening Guy was writing, when Philip, who had been lying still, as if asleep, asked, 'Are you writing to Hollywell?'

'Yes, to Charlotte; but there is no hurry, it won't go till tomorrow. Have you any message?

'No, thank you.'

Guy fancied he sighed; and there was a long silence, at the end of which he asked, 'Guy, have I said anything about Laura?'

'Yes,' said Guy, putting down the pen.

'I thought so; but I could not remember,' said Philip, turning round, and settling himself for conversation, with much of his ordinary deliberate preparation; 'I hope it was not when I had no command of myself?'

'No, you were seldom intelligible, you were generally trying to speak Italian, or else talking about Stylehurst. The only time you mentioned her was the night before the worst.'

'I recollect,' said Philip. 'I will not draw back from the resolution I then made, though I did not know whether I had spoken it, let the consequences be what they may. The worst is, that they will fall the most severely on her: and her implicit reliance on me was her only error.'

His voice was very low, and so full of painful feeling that Guy doubted whether to let him enter on such a subject at present; but remembering the relief of free confession, he thought it best to allow him to proceed, only now and then putting in some note of sympathy or of interrogation, in word or gesture.