another tune which she seemed to be perpetually trying to recall and
piece together. Aldous's slow minor made her impatient.

He turned presently to ask her what she had been doing with her
morning--asking her with a certain precision, and observing her
attentively. She replied that she had been showing Mr. Wharton the
house, that he had walked down with her to the village, and was gone to
a meeting at Widrington. Then she remarked that he was very good
company, and very clever, but dreadfully sure of his own opinion.
Finally she laughed, and said drily:

"There will be no putting him down all the same. I haven't told anybody
yet, but he saved my life this morning."

Aldous caught her wrists.

"Saved your life! Dear--What do you mean?"

She explained, giving the little incident all--perhaps more than--its
dramatic due. He listened with evident annoyance, and stood pondering
when she came to an end.

"So I shall be expected to take quite a different view of him
henceforward?" he inquired at last, looking round at her, with a very
forced smile.

"I am sure I don't know that it matters to him what view anybody takes
of him," she cried, flushing. "He certainly takes the frankest views of
other people, and expresses them."

And while she played with the pearls in their box she gave a vivid
account of her morning's talk with the Radical candidate for West
Brookshire, and of their village expedition.

There was a certain relief in describing the scorn with which her acts
and ideals had been treated; and, underneath, a woman's curiosity as to
how Aldous would take it.

"I don't know what business he had to express himself so frankly," said
Aldous, turning to the fire and carefully putting it together. "He
hardly knows you--it was, I think, an impertinence."

He stood upright, with his back to the hearth, a strong, capable,
frowning Englishman, very much on his dignity. Such a moment must surely
have become him in the eyes of a girl that loved him. Marcella proved
restive under it.

"No; it's very natural," she protested quickly. "When people are so much
in earnest they don't stop to think about impertinence! I never met any
one who dug up one's thoughts by the roots as he does."

Aldous was startled by her flush, her sudden attitude of opposition. His
intermittent lack of readiness overtook him, and there was an awkward
silence. Then, pulling himself together with a strong hand, he left the
subject and began