tinence to come up and
shake hands with me."

"I suppose he didn't say anything about what happened at the
Paddington Station?"

"No; he didn't speak about that. I wish I knew whether she cares for
him still. If I thought she did, I would never speak another word to
her,--I mean about myself. Of course I am not going to quarrel with
them. I am not such a fool as that." Then Lady Julia tried to comfort
him, and succeeded so far that he was induced to eat the mince veal
that had been intended for the comfort and support of the two young
ladies who had run away.

"Do you think it is he?" were the first words which Grace said when
they were fairly on their way back together.

"I should think it must be. What other man can there be, of that
sort, who would be likely to come to Allington to see you?"

"His coming is not likely. I cannot understand that he should come.
He let me leave Silverbridge without seeing me,--and I thought that
he was quite right."

"And I think he is quite right to come here. I am very glad he has
come. It shows that he has really something like a heart inside him.
Had he not come, or sent, or written, or taken some step before the
trial comes on, to make you know that he was thinking of you, I
should have said that he was as hard,--as hard as any other man that
I ever heard of. Men are so hard! But I don't think he is, now. I
am beginning to regard him as the one chevalier sans peur et sans
reproche, and to fancy that you ought to go down on your knees before
him, and kiss his highness's shoebuckle. In judging of men one's mind
vacillates so quickly between the scorn which is due to a false man
and the worship which is due to a true man." Then she was silent for
a moment, but Grace said nothing, and Lily continued, "I tell you
fairly, Grace, that I shall expect very much from you now."

"Much in what way, Lily?"

"In the way of worship. I shall not be content that you should merely
love him. If he has come here, as he must have done, to say that the
moment of the world's reproach is the moment he has chosen to ask you
to be his wife, I think that you will owe him more than love."

"I shall owe him more than love, and I will pay him more than love,"
said Grace. There was something in the tone of her voice as she spoke
which made Lily stop her and look up into her face. There was a smile
there which Lily had never seen before, and which gave a beauty to
her which was wonderful to Lily's eye