ing is
not to be thought of. Tell her Ladyship courteously that she must be
mad."

But though he could speak thus to Grizel, there came to him
tempestuous desires to be by the side of the woman who could mock him
and then stand waiting.

Had she shown any fear of him all would have been well with Tommy; he
could have kept away from her complacently. But she had flung down the
glove, and laughed to see him edge away from it. He knew exactly what
was in her mind. He was too clever not to know that her one desire was
to make him a miserable man; to remember how he had subdued and left
her would be gall to Lady Pippinworth until she achieved the same
triumph over him. How confident she was that he could never prove the
stronger of the two again! What were all her mockings but a beckoning
to him to come on? "Take care!" said Tommy between his teeth.

And then again horror of himself would come to his rescue. The man he
had been a moment ago was vile to him, and all his thoughts were now
heroic. You may remember that he had once taken Grizel to a seaside
place; they went there again. It was Tommy's proposal, but he did not
go to flee from temptation; however his worse nature had been stirred
and his vanity pricked, he was too determinedly Grizel's to fear that
in any fierce hour he might rush into danger. He wanted Grizel to come
away from the place where she always found so much to do for him, so
that there might be the more for him to do for her. And that week was
as the time they had spent there before. All that devotion which had
to be planned could do for woman he did. Grizel saw him planning it
and never admitted that she saw. In the after years it was sweet to
her to recall that week and the hundred laboriously lover-like things
Tommy had done in it. She knew by this time that Tommy had never tried
to make her love him, and that it was only when her love for him
revealed itself in the Den that desire to save her pride made him
pretend to be in love with her. This knowledge would have been a great
pain to her once, but now it had more of pleasure in it, for it showed
that even in those days he had struggled a little for her.

We must hasten to the end. Those of you who took in the newspapers a
quarter of a century ago know what it was, but none of you know why he
climbed the wall.

They returned to Thrums in a week. They had meant to stay longer, but
suddenly Tommy wanted to go back. Yes, it was Lady Pippinworth w