mpossible for him to question Lesley herself.

"What rubbish it all is--this love-making, marrying, and giving in
marriage!" he said, at last, impatiently, to himself. "I'll think no
more about these young folks' affairs--let them make or mar their
happiness in their own way. I'll think of my work and nothing else--I've
neglected it a good deal of late, I fancy. I must make up for lost time
now." And sitting down at his table, he turned over the papers upon it,
and took up a quill pen. But he did not begin to write for some minutes.
He sat frowning at the paper, biting the feathers of his pen, drumming
with his fingers on the table. And after a time he muttered to himself,
"If any man harms Lesley, I'll wring his neck--that's all;" which did
not sound as though he were giving to his literary work all the
attention that it required.

As to Lesley, she would have given a great deal at that time for a
counsellor of some kind. The old feeling of friendlessness had come back
to her. Her aunt was absorbed by her own affairs, her father looked at
her with unquiet displeasure in his eyes. Oliver Trent had proved
himself a false friend indeed. Ethel was a little reserved with her, and
she had sent Maurice Kenyon away. There was nobody else to whom she
could turn for comfort. True, she had made many acquaintances by this
time: her father's circle was a large one, and she knew more people now
than she had ever spoken to in her quiet convent days. But these were
all acquaintances--not friends. She could not speak to any one of these
about Maurice Kenyon, her lover and her friend. Once or twice she
thought vaguely of writing to her mother about him; but she shrank from
doing so without quite knowing why. The fact was, she knew her mother's
criticism beforehand: she expected to be reproached with having broken
her compact in the spirit if not in the letter; and she did not know how
to justify herself. Maurice had taken his dismissal as final, and she
had not meant him to do so. Now, if ever, the girl wanted a friend who
would either encourage her to explain her position to him, or would do
it for her. Lady Alice would not fill this post efficiently. And Lesley,
in her youthful shamefaced pride, felt that nothing would induce her to
make her own explanation to Maurice. It would seem like asking him to
ask her again to marry him--an insupportable thought.

So she went about the house pale and heavy-eyed, trying with all her
might to