An attack?" he repeated.

"Yes." Hilary and she related simply how she had found Hilary at
Fairview, and how she had driven him home. But, during the whole of her
recital, she could not rid herself of the apprehension that he was
thinking her interference unwarranted, her coming an indelicate
repetition of the other visit. As he stood there listening in the
gathering dusk, she could not tell from his face what he thought. His
expression, when serious, had a determined, combative, almost grim note
in it, which came from a habit he had of closing his jaw tightly; and his
eyes were like troubled skies through which there trembled an occasional
flash of light.

Victoria had never felt his force so strongly as now, and never had he
seemed more distant; at times--she had thought--she had had glimpses of
his soul; to-night he was inscrutable, and never had she realized the
power (which she bad known he must possess) of making himself so. And to
her? Her pride forbade her recalling at that moment the confidences which
had passed between them and which now seemed to have been so impossible.
He was serious because he was listening to serious news--she told
herself. But it was more than this: he had shut himself up, he was
impenetrable. Shame seized her; yes, and anger; and shame again at the
remembrance of her talk with Euphrasia--and anger once more. Could he
think that she would make advances to tempt his honour, and risk his good
opinion and her own?

Confidence is like a lute-string, giving forth sweet sounds in its
perfection; there are none so discordant as when it snaps.

Victoria scarcely heard Austen's acknowledgments of her kindness, so
perfunctory did they seem, so unlike the man she had known; and her own
protestations that she had done nothing to merit his thanks were to her
quite as unreal. She introduced him to the Englishman.

"Mr. Rangely has been good enough to come with me," she said.

"I've never seen anybody act with more presence of mind than Miss Flint,"
Rangely declared, as he shook Austen's hand. "She did just the right
thing, without wasting any time whatever."

"I'm sure of it," said Austen, cordially enough. But to Victoria's keener
ear, other tones which she had heard at other times were lacking. Nor
could she, clever as she was, see the palpable reason standing before
her!

"I say," said Rangely, as they drove away, "he strikes me as a remarkably
sound chap, Miss Flint. There is something un