during his present visit. If, however, there was any more
serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint
might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me.
All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the
last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement
between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning
of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on
those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his
pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would
tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by
leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement."

"No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience,
few men in his situation would have said as much."

She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a
singular expression of perplexity and distress.

"I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But
I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to
this marriage."

"That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself
requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you
not to force her inclinations."

"And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message."

"How can that possibly be?"

"Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to
reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two
of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's
memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never
broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this
engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he
spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on
his deathbed."

I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case.

"Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke
to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just
mentioned?"

Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke.

"Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom
I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily.

I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We
see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession.

"