Excerpt from Chapter I:"We are to see each other no more."These words were breathed rather than spoken in the dim recess of a window, hidden behind ample curtains, the deep recess in which the window was set leaving room enough for two figures standing close together. Without was a misty night, whitened rather than lighted by a pale moon."Who says so?""Alas! my uncle," said the white figure, which looked misty, like the night, in undistinguishable whiteness amid the darkness round.The other figure was less distinguishable still, no more than a faint solidity in the atmosphere, but from it came a deeper whisper, the low sound of a man's voice. "Your uncle!" it said.There was character in the voices enough to throw some light upon the speakers, even though they were unseen.The woman's had a faint accentuation of feeling, not of anxiety, yet half defiance and half appeal. It seemed to announce a fact unchangeable, yet to look and hope for a contradiction. The man's had a tone of acceptance and dismay. The fiat which had gone forth was more real to him than to her, though she was in the position of asserting and he of opposing it."Yes," she said, "Ronald, my uncle-who has the strings of the purse and every thing else in his hands--"