you, after all,'
Ethelberta continued to Sol. 'Something has just happened which makes it
desirable for me to return at once to England. But I will write a list
of all you are to see, and where you are to go, so that it will make
little difference, I hope.'

Ten minutes before this time Ethelberta had been frankly and earnestly
asked by Lord Mountclere to become his bride; not only so, but he pressed
her to consent to have the ceremony performed before they returned to
England. Ethelberta had unquestionably been much surprised; and, barring
the fact that the viscount was somewhat ancient in comparison with
herself, the temptation to close with his offer was strong, and would
have been felt as such by any woman in the position of Ethelberta, now a
little reckless by stress of circumstances, and tinged with a bitterness
of spirit against herself and the world generally. But she was
experienced enough to know what heaviness might result from a hasty
marriage, entered into with a mind full of concealments and suppressions
which, if told, were likely to stop the marriage altogether; and after
trying to bring herself to speak of her family and situation to Lord
Mountclere as he stood, a certain caution triumphed, and she concluded
that it would be better to postpone her reply till she could consider
which of two courses it would be advisable to adopt; to write and explain
to him, or to explain nothing and refuse him. The third course, to
explain nothing and hasten the wedding, she rejected without hesitation.
With a pervading sense of her own obligations in forming this compact it
did not occur to her to ask if Lord Mountclere might not have duties of
explanation equally with herself, though bearing rather on the moral than
the social aspects of the case.

Her resolution not to go on to Paris was formed simply because Lord
Mountclere himself was proceeding in that direction, which might lead to
other unseemly rencounters with him had she, too, persevered in her
journey. She accordingly gave Sol and Dan directions for their guidance
to Paris and back, starting herself with Cornelia the next day to return
again to Knollsea, and to decide finally and for ever what to do in the
vexed question at present agitating her.

Never before in her life had she treated marriage in such a terribly cool
and cynical spirit as she had done that day; she was almost frightened at
herself in thinking of it. How far any known system of et