t would be; tell him everything, Frank. Oh, don't
leave him till you have persuaded him. Go, go; never mind me," cried Mrs
Wentworth; and then she went to the door after him once more--"Don't say
I sent for you. He--he might not be pleased," she said, in her
faltering, eager voice; "and oh, Frank, consider how much hangs upon
what you say." When he left her, Louisa stood at the door watching him
as he went along the passage towards her husband's room. It was a
forlorn-hope; but still the unreasoning, uncomprehending heart took a
little comfort from it. She watched his figure disappearing along the
narrow passage with a thrill of mingled anxiety and hope; arguing with
Gerald, though it was so ineffectual when she tried it, might still be
of some avail in stronger hands. His brother understood him, and could
talk to him better than anybody else could; and though she had never
convinced anybody of anything all her life, Mrs Wentworth had an
inalienable confidence in the effect of "being talked to." In the
momentary stimulus she went back to her darkened room and drew up the
blind, and went to work in a tremulous way; but as the slow time went
on, and Frank did not return, poor Louisa's courage failed her; her
fingers refused their office, and she began to imagine all sorts of
things that might be going on in Gerald's study. Perhaps the argument
might be going the wrong way; perhaps Gerald might be angry at his
brother's interference; perhaps they might come to words--they who had
been such good friends--and it would be her fault. She jumped up with
her heart beating loud when she heard a door opened somewhere; but when
nobody came, grew sick and faint, and hid her face, in the impatience of
her misery. Then the feeling grew upon her that those precious moments
were decisive, and that she must make one last appeal, or her heart
would burst. She tried to resist the impulse in a feeble way, but it was
not her custom to resist impulses, and it got the better of her; and
this was why poor Louisa rushed into the library, just as Frank thought
he had made a little advance in his pleading, and scattered his
eloquence to the winds with a set of dreadful arguments which were all
her own.

CHAPTER XVI.

The Curate of St Roque's found his brother in his library, looking
very much as he always looked at first glance. But Gerald was not
reading nor writing nor doing anything. He was seated in his usual
chair, by his usual tabl