or opened and Egremont stood before her. The
blood rose to her cheek, her heart trembled; for the first time in his
presence she felt embarrassed and constrained. His countenance on the
contrary was collected; serious and pale.

"I am an intruder," he said advancing, "but I wish much to speak to
you," and he seated himself near her. There was a momentary pause. "You
seemed to treat with scorn yesterday," resumed Egremont in accents
less sustained, "the belief that sympathy was independent of the
mere accidents of position. Pardon me, Sybil, but even you may be
prejudiced." He paused.

"I should be sorry to treat anything you said with scorn," replied Sybil
in a subdued tone. "Many things happened yesterday," she added, "which
might be offered as some excuse for an unguarded word."

"Would that it had been unguarded!" said Egremont in a voice of
melancholy. "I could have endured it with less repining. No, Sybil, I
have known you, I have had the happiness and the sorrow of knowing you
too well to doubt the convictions of your mind, or to believe that they
can be lightly removed, and yet I would strive to remove them. You
look upon me as an enemy, as a natural foe, because I am born among the
privileged. I am a man, Sybil, as well as a noble." Again he paused; she
looked down, but did not speak.

"And can I not feel for men, my fellows, whatever be their lot? I know
you will deny it; but you are in error, Sybil; you have formed your
opinions upon tradition, not upon experience. The world that exists is
not the world of which you have read; the class that calls itself your
superior is not the same class as ruled in the time of your fathers.
There is a change in them as in all other things, and I participate that
change. I shared it before I knew you, Sybil; and if it touched me then,
at least believe it does not influence me less now."

"If there be a change," said Sybil, "it is because in some degree the
People have learnt their strength."

"Ah! dismiss from your mind those fallacious fancies," said Egremont.
"The People are not strong; the People never can be strong. Their
attempts at self-vindication will end only in their suffering and
confusion. It is civilisation that has effected, that is effecting this
change. It is that increased knowledge of themselves that teaches the
educated their social duties. There is a dayspring in the history of
this nation which those who are on the mountain tops can as yet perhaps