ing it, pausing for it, hoping it would come to solve his
intense perplexity. The prolonged stillness terrified him; for, away
from the sisters, he had power to read the anguish of Dahlia's heart,
her frozen incapacity, and the great and remorseless mastery which lay
in Rhoda's inexorable will.

A few doors down the street he met Major blaring, on his way to him.
"Here's five minutes' work going to be done, which we may all of us
regret till the day of our deaths," Robert said, and related what had
passed during the morning hours.

Percy approved Rhoda, saying, "She must rescue her sister at all
hazards. The case is too serious for her to listen to feelings, and
regrets, and objections. The world against one poor woman is unfair
odds, Robert. I come to tell you I leave England in a day or two. Will
you join me?"

"How do I know what I shall or can do?" said Robert, mournfully: and
they parted.

Rhoda's unflickering determination to carry out, and to an end,
this tragic struggle of duty against inclination; on her own sole
responsibility forcing it on; acting like a Fate, in contempt of mere
emotions,--seemed barely real to his mind: each moment that he conceived
it vividly, he became more certain that she must break down. Was it in
her power to drag Dahlia to the steps of the altar? And would not her
heart melt when at last Dahlia did get her voice? "This marriage can
never take place!" he said, and was convinced of its being impossible.
He forgot that while he was wasting energy at Fairly, Rhoda had sat
hiving bitter strength in the loneliness of the Farm; with one vile
epithet clapping on her ears, and nothing but unavailing wounded love
for her absent unhappy sister to make music of her pulses.

He found his way to Dahlia's room; he put her Bible under his arm,
and looked about him sadly. Time stood at a few minutes past eleven.
Flinging himself into a chair, he thought of waiting in that place; but
a crowd of undefinable sensations immediately beset him. Seeing Edward
Blancove in the street below, he threw up the window compassionately,
and Edward, casting a glance to right and left, crossed the road. Robert
went down to him.

"I am waiting for my cousin." Edward had his watch in his hand. "I think
I am fast. Can you tell me the time exactly?"

"Why, I'm rather slow," said Robert, comparing time with his own watch.
"I make it four minutes past the hour."

"I am at fourteen," said Edward. "I fancy I must be