t to do it."

"Fate!" says Dicky Browne, solemnly.

Meantime, Fabian has turned away and gone quickly in the direction of
the house. Dulce, running down the balcony steps, goes up to him with a
very white little face.

"Darling, how brave you were. I thought something dreadful was going to
happen to you. It was a horrid moment. If that wicked Bess had persisted
she might have thrown you down and killed you."

"Well, she didn't, you see," says Fabian, lightly--but he shrinks a
little from her embrace, and moves so that she cannot touch his right
arm. His eyes are fixed upon the balcony above, where Portia still
stands, pale as an early snowdrop and thoroughly unnerved. There is,
however, about her a certain calm, that is part of her nature, and that,
perhaps, in her very greatest emergency, and in her bitterest hour of
need, would still be hers.

At this moment, however, Fabian so far wrongs her as to attribute this
inborn quietude to coldness and indifference. He turns again to Dulce.

"Take that terrified look off your face," he says, somewhat languidly,
with a smile that is faintly bitter. "You should show more self-control.
Take example by your cousin; see how composed she can be, and how
sensible."

He smiles again, and indicates Portia by a glance. For an instant his
eyes meet hers. Is he wrong in thinking she is even a shade paler now
than she was a moment since? He is not sure; and he has not time given
him to make the thought a certainty, as Miss Vibart, turning slowly,
goes towards one of the drawing-room windows, and presently is lost to
sight.

There was something in her eyes, in the hurried glance he got at them,
that saddens Fabian. Almost forgetful of Dulce's presence, he walks away
from her, and, having gained the house, goes moodily up the stairs
towards his own room.

His soul is disquieted; an agony of unrest, that even in his first days
of despair had not visited him, is on him now; a longing, a craving, for
what he knows (ah! the deep grief of that!) can never be obtained.

Why had her soft eyes looked so reproachful a while ago? Why had she
turned so quickly away from him when he had spoken those few harsh
words, for which he hates himself now?

Her pallor returns to him, and the fear in her large eyes. Surely he
should have taken note of them first, and not of the calmness and
seeming coldness and her utter composure.

And then a strange soft light comes into his face, as he remember