Without knowing well how he got there, Brand found himself in Curzon Street.  He walked on, perhaps with some vague notion that he might meet Natalie herself, until he arrived at the house.  It was quite dark; there was no light in any of the windows; Anneli had not even lit the gas-jet in the narrow hall.  He turned away from the door that he felt was now barred against him forever, and walked back to Clarges Street.

Lord Evelyn was out; the man did not know when he would be home again.  So Brand turned away from that door also, and resumed his aimless wanderings, busy with those pictures of the past.  At length he got down to Buckingham Street, and almost mechanically made his way toward his own rooms.

He had reached his door, however, when he heard some one speaking within.

“I might have known,” he said to himself.  “That is so like Evelyn.”

It was indeed Lord Evelyn, who was chatting familiarly with old Waters.  But the moment Brand entered he ceased, and a look of anxiety, and even alarm, appeared instantly on the fine, sensitive, expressive face.

“What is the matter, Brand?  Are you ill?”

“No,” said the other, dropping into a chair; “only tired—­and worried, perhaps.  Waters, get me a biscuit and a glass of sherry.  Now, when I think of it, I ought to feel tired—­I have eaten nothing since eight o’clock this morning.”

Lord Evelyn jumped to his feet.

“Come off at once, Brand.  We will go up to the Strand and get you something to eat.  Gracious goodness, it is nearly ten o’clock!”

“No, no, never mind.  I have something to talk to you about, Evelyn.”

“But why on earth had Waters no dinner waiting for you?”

“I did not tell him—­I forgot.  Never mind; I will have some supper by-and-by.  I called on you, Evelyn, about half an hour ago; I might have known you would be here.”

Lord Evelyn paused for a second or two, while Waters came in and went out again.  Then he said,

“I can tell by your face, Brand, that something has happened.”

“Nothing that I had not foreseen.”

“Did you consent or refuse?”

“I refused.”

“Well?”

“Then, as I knew he would, he suggested that I might as well get ready to start for America as soon as possible.”

Brand was speaking in a light and scornful way; but his face was careworn, and his eyes kept turning to the windows and the dark night outside, as if they were looking at something far away.

“About Natalie?” Lord Evelyn asked.

“Oh, he was frank enough.  He dropped all those roundabout phrases about the great honor, and so forth.  He was quite plain.  ’Not to be thought of.’”

Lord Evelyn remained silent for some time.

“I am very sorry, Brand,” he said at length; and then he continued with some hesitation—­“Do you know—­I have been thinking that—­that though it’s a very extreme thing for a man to give up his fortune—­a very extreme thing—­I can quite understand how the proposal looked to you very monstrous at first—­still, if you put that in the balance as against a man’s giving up his native country and the woman whom he is in love with—­don’t you see—­the happiness of people of so much more importance than a sum of money, however large—­”