ct.

"Does he know that they are going to Capri!"

"He evidently hadn't heard of it. I suppose he'll have a note from Mrs.
Lessingham this evening or to-morrow."

Miriam waited a little, then asked:

"What is his own wish? What does he think ought to be arranged?"

"Just what Cecily told you," interposed Eleanor, before her husband
could reply.

"I thought he might have spoken more freely to Edward."

"Well," answered Spence, "he is strongly of opinion that Reuben ought
to go to England very soon. But I suppose Cecily told you that as well?"

"She seemed to be willing. But why doesn't Mr. Mallard speak to her
himself?"

"Mallard isn't exactly the man for this delicate business," said
Spence, smiling.

Miriam glanced from him to Eleanor. She would have said no more, had it
been in her power to keep silence; but an involuntary persistence, the
same in kind as that often manifested by questioning children--an
impulsive feeling that the next query must elicit something which would
satisfy a vague desire, obliged her to speak again.

"Is it his intention not to see Cecily at all?"

"I think very likely it is, Miriam," answered Eleanor, when her husband
showed that he left her to do so.

"I understand."

To which remark Eleanor, when Miriam was gone, attached the
interrogative, "I wonder whether she does?" The Spences did not feel it
incumbent upon them to direct her in the matter; it were just as well
if she followed a mistaken clue.

Two days later, Mrs. Lessingham and her niece, accompanied by Reuben
Elgar, departed for Capri. The day after that, Mr. and Mrs. Bradshaw in
very deed said good-bye to Naples and travelled northwards. They
purposed spending Christmas in Rome, and thence by quicker stages they
would return to the land of civilization. Spence went to the station to
see them off, and at lunch, after speaking of this and other things, he
said to Miriam:

"Mallard wishes to see you. I told him I thought five o'clock this
afternoon would be a convenient time."

Miriam assented, but not without betraying surprise and uneasiness.
Subsequently she just mentioned to Eleanor that she would receive the
visitor in her own sitting-room. There, as five o'clock drew near, she
waited in painful agitation. What it was Mallard's purpose to say to
her she could not with any degree of certainty conjecture. Had Reuben
told him of the part she had played in connection with that eventful
day at Pompeii? What wou