ay; do see me--do see me!' he said. 'I asked for Lady
Davenant--they told me she was at home. But it was you I wanted, and I
wanted her to help me. I was going away--but I couldn't. You look very
ill--do listen to me! You don't understand--I will explain everything.
Ah, how ill you look!' the young man cried, as the climax of this
sudden, soft, distressed appeal. Laura, for all answer, tried to push
past him, but the result of this movement was that she found herself
enclosed in his arms. He stopped her, but she disengaged herself, she
got her hand upon the door. He was leaning against it, so she couldn't
open it, and as she stood there panting she shut her eyes, so as not to
see him. 'If you would let me tell you what I think--I would do anything
in the world for you!' he went on.

'Let me go--you persecute me!' the girl cried, pulling at the handle.

'You don't do me justice--you are too cruel!' Mr. Wendover persisted.

'Let me go--let me go!' she only repeated, with her high, quavering,
distracted note; and as he moved a little she got the door open. But he
followed her out: would she see him that night? Where was she going?
might he not go with her? would she see him to-morrow?

'Never, never, never!' she flung at him as she hurried away. The butler
was on the stairs, descending from above; so he checked himself, letting
her go. Laura passed out of the house and flew into her cab with
extraordinary speed, for Mr. Wendover heard the wheels bear her away
while the servant was saying to him in measured accents that her
ladyship would come down immediately.

Lionel was at home, in Grosvenor Place: she burst into the library and
found him playing papa. Geordie and Ferdy were sporting around him, the
presence of Miss Steet had been dispensed with, and he was holding his
younger son by the stomach, horizontally, between his legs, while the
child made little sprawling movements which were apparently intended to
represent the act of swimming. Geordie stood impatient on the brink of
the imaginary stream, protesting that it was his turn now, and as soon
as he saw his aunt he rushed at her with the request that she would take
him up in the same fashion. She was struck with the superficiality of
their childhood; they appeared to have no sense that she had been away
and no care that she had been ill. But Lionel made up for this; he
greeted her with affectionate jollity, said it was a good job she had
come back, and remarked t