the
journey after that. She was learning that it was best for her not to see
Denis Oglethorpe again, and here it seemed that she must see him in
spite of herself, even though she was conscientious enough to wish to do
what was best, not so much because it was best for herself, as because
it was just to Priscilla Gower. But Lady Throckmorton had come to a
decision, and forthwith made her preparations. She even wrote to Vienna,
and told Denis that they were coming, herself and Theodora North, and he
must wait and meet them if possible.

It was a great trial to Theodora, this. She was actually girlish and
sensitive enough to fancy that Mr. Denis Oglethorpe might imagine their
intention to follow him was some fault of hers, and she was
uncomfortable and nervous accordingly. She hoped he would have left
Vienna before the letter reached him; she hoped he might go away in
spite of it; she hoped it might never reach him at all. And yet, in
spite of this, she experienced an almost passionately keen sense of
disappointment when, on the day before their departure, Lady
Throckmorton received a letter from him regretting his inability to
comply with her request, and announcing his immediate departure for some
place whose name he did not mention. Business had called him away, and
Lady Throckmorton, of course, knew what such business was, and how
imperative its demands were.

"He might have waited," Theo said to herself, with an unexpected,
inconsistent feeling of wretchedness. "I would have stayed anywhere to
have seen him only for a minute. He had no need to be so ready to go
away." And then she found herself burning all over, as it were, in her
shame at discovering how bold her thoughts had been.

Perhaps this was the first time she really awoke to a full consciousness
of where she had drifted. The current had carried her along so far, and
she had not been to blame, because she had not comprehended her danger;
but now it was different. She was awakening, but she was at the edge of
the cataract, and its ominous sounds had alarmed her.

CHAPTER VI.

THEO GOES TO PARIS.

The letters that were faithfully written to Downport during the
following month were the cause of no slight excitement in the house of
David North, Esq. The children looked forward to the reception of them
as an event worthy of being chronicled. Theo was an exact correspondent,
and recorded her adventures and progress with as careful a precision as
if