fride after that unfortunate slip his tongue had made in respect
of her having committed herself; and, apart from that, Knight's
severe--almost dogged and self-willed--honesty in criticizing was
unassailable by the humble wish of a youthful friend like Stephen.

Knight was now ready. Turning off the gas, and slamming together the
door, they went downstairs and into the street.

Chapter XIV

'We frolic while 'tis May.'

It has now to be realized that nearly three-quarters of a year have
passed away. In place of the autumnal scenery which formed a setting to
the previous enactments, we have the culminating blooms of summer in the
year following.

Stephen is in India, slaving away at an office in Bombay; occasionally
going up the country on professional errands, and wondering why people
who had been there longer than he complained so much of the effect of
the climate upon their constitutions. Never had a young man a finer
start than seemed now to present itself to Stephen. It was just in that
exceptional heyday of prosperity which shone over Bombay some few years
ago, that he arrived on the scene. Building and engineering partook
of the general impetus. Speculation moved with an accelerated velocity
every successive day, the only disagreeable contingency connected with
it being the possibility of a collapse.

Elfride had never told her father of the four-and-twenty-hours' escapade
with Stephen, nor had it, to her knowledge, come to his ears by any
other route. It was a secret trouble and grief to the girl for a short
time, and Stephen's departure was another ingredient in her sorrow. But
Elfride possessed special facilities for getting rid of trouble after a
decent interval. Whilst a slow nature was imbibing a misfortune little
by little, she had swallowed the whole agony of it at a draught and was
brightening again. She could slough off a sadness and replace it by a
hope as easily as a lizard renews a diseased limb.

And two such excellent distractions had presented themselves. One was
bringing out the romance and looking for notices in the papers, which,
though they had been significantly short so far, had served to divert
her thoughts. The other was migrating from the vicarage to the more
commodious old house of Mrs. Swancourt's, overlooking the same valley.
Mr. Swancourt at first disliked the idea of being transplanted to
feminine soil, but the obvious advantages of such an accession of
dignity rec