bles to which he had alluded? Perhaps Miss Aldclyffe was at the
bottom of them. Sad at heart she paced on: her life was bewildering her.

On coming into Miss Aldclyffe's presence Cytherea told her of the
incident, not without a fear that she would burst into one of her
ungovernable fits of temper at learning Cytherea's slight departure
from the programme. But, strangely to Cytherea, Miss Aldclyffe looked
delighted. The usual cross-examination followed.

'And so you were with him all that time?' said the lady, with assumed
severity.

'Yes, I was.'

'I did not tell you to call at the Old House twice.'

'I didn't call, as I have said. He made me come into the porch.'

'What remarks did he make, do you say?'

'That the lightning was not so bad as I thought.'

'A very important remark, that. Did he--' she turned her glance full
upon the girl, and eyeing her searchingly, said--

'Did he say anything about _me_?'

'Nothing,' said Cytherea, returning her gaze calmly, 'except that I was
to give you the subscription.'

'You are quite sure?'

'Quite.'

'I believe you. Did he say anything striking or strange about himself?'

'Only one thing--that he was troubled,'

'Troubled!'

After saying the word, Miss Aldclyffe relapsed into silence. Such
behaviour as this had ended, on most previous occasions, by her making
a confession, and Cytherea expected one now. But for once she was
mistaken, nothing more was said.

When she had returned to her room she sat down and penned a farewell
letter to Edward Springrove, as little able as any other excitable
and brimming young woman of nineteen to feel that the wisest and only
dignified course at that juncture was to do nothing at all. She told
him that, to her painful surprise, she had learnt that his engagement
to another woman was a matter of notoriety. She insisted that all honour
bade him marry his early love--a woman far better than her unworthy
self, who only deserved to be forgotten, and begged him to remember
that he was not to see her face again. She upbraided him for levity
and cruelty in meeting her so frequently at Budmouth, and above all
in stealing the kiss from her lips on the last evening of the water
excursions. 'I never, never can forget it!' she said, and then felt a
sensation of having done her duty, ostensibly persuading herself that
her reproaches and commands were of such a force that no man to whom
they were uttered could ever approach her more.

Y