ate."

"One wants to be pleased with one's company to walk far on such a night
as this," put in Elizabeth maliciously.

"And so we were--at least I was," Geoffrey answered with perfect truth,
"and the night is not so bad as you might think, at least under the lee
of the cliffs. It will be worse by and by!"

Then they sat down and made a desperate show of eating supper.
Elizabeth, the keen-eyed, noticed that Geoffrey's hand was shaking. Now
what, she wondered, would make the hand of a strong man shake like a
leaf? Deep emotion might do it, and Elizabeth thought that she detected
other signs of emotion in them both, besides that of Geoffrey's shaking
hand. The plot was working well, but could it be brought to a climax?
Oh, if he would only throw prudence to the winds and run away with
Beatrice, so that she might be rid of her, and free to fight for her own
hand.

Shortly after supper both Elizabeth and Beatrice went to bed, leaving
their father with Geoffrey.

"Well," said Mr. Granger, "did you get a word with Beatrice? It was very
kind of you to go that long tramp on purpose. Gracious, how it blows! we
shall have the house down presently. Lightning, too, I declare."

"Yes," answered Geoffrey, "I did."

"Ah, I hope you told her that there was no need for her to give up hope
of him yet, of Mr. Davies, I mean?"

"Yes, I told her that--that is if the greater includes the less," he
added to himself.

"And how did she take it?"

"Very badly," said Geoffrey; "she seemed to think that I had no right to
interfere."

"Indeed, that is strange. But it doesn't mean anything. She's grateful
enough to you at heart, depend upon it she is, only she did not like to
say so. Dear me, how it blows; we shall have a night of it, a regular
gale, I declare. So you are going away to-morrow morning. Well, the
best of friends must part. I hope that you will often come and see us.
Good-bye."

Once more a sense of the irony of the position overcame Geoffrey, and he
smiled grimly as he lit his candle and went to bed. At the back of the
house was a long passage, which terminated at one end in the room where
he slept, and at the other in that occupied by Elizabeth and Beatrice.
This passage was lit by two windows, and built out of it were two more
rooms--that of Mr. Granger, and another which had been Effie's. The
windows of the passage, like most of the others in the Vicarage, were
innocent of shutters, and Geoffrey stood for a moment a