ich he had so often walked and
talked with Leonore.

He had never made love to her; his grandmother had told him not.
Delighted as the old lady was with the turn events were taking, she had
the wit to see that undue haste might ruin all, and enjoined caution
with fervour. "Be friends, but no more--at present, Val."

Furthermore, it was at Mrs. Purcell's instigation that the shooting
visits were prolonged beyond their usual limits on the present occasion.

She got painters into the house, and made them an excuse for bidding
Valentine keep away if he could;--and her manner of placing the position
before him piqued his vanity, as she knew it would. "If you have no more
invitations, return, and I will make a shift to house you somewhere,"
she wrote;--but of course a popular young man is never short of
invitations; and the autumn so wearily dragged through by Leonore, was
full of gaiety and variety for her friend.

He had a great time, a glorious time,--and was longing to tell the tale
of it to sympathetic ears, when he set forth from his own doorstep on
the present mild October afternoon; he heard himself dilating and
explaining, introducing names which would lead to inquiries, carelessly
referring to charming girls--oh, he foresaw a delightful hour, whether
it were in the Abbey drawing-room, or better still with his favourite
auditor in a woodland solitude--and now?

Now somehow, he did not care to begin. Was Leo in one of her moods? If
so it was no use thinking of anything else; he knew by experience what
those moods were. Could he bring her round? Sometimes he could,
sometimes not.

Was she really pleased to see him back, or--? He could not endure that
"or?"

In short, the whole magnificent house of cards wherewith our young man
had so pleased himself an hour before, showed now a flimsy shanty not
worth a moment's preservation; and stripped of all importance, reduced
to insignificance, afraid of his own voice, he slunk along by Leonore's
side.

"Why don't you speak?"--she flung at him at last.

"You--you are so strange!" He faltered, then tried to rally. "What's the
matter, Leo? Something is, I'm sure. You might tell me. You know I'm
always sorry when you are, and----"

"What makes you think I am?" But she spoke more gently, and emboldened,
he proceeded:--

"You did look pleased at first, but directly I spoke, you seemed to fly
off at a tangent. I suppose I said something rotten, I often do--but you
might