hock, and that her recovery, or seeming recovery, has
been too rapid. Yet there is no trace of wandering in her talk with me.'

'Nor was there to-day. She was perfectly rational. Think of one's being
driven to hope that she only _seemed_ so!'

'Did you speak of correspondence?'

'No. I said that I could not agree to what she asked of me until she had
repeated it after a time. I left her scarcely knowing what I spoke. What
shall I do? How can I remain in doubt such as this? I said I wished for
your help, yet how can you--how can anyone--help me? Have I
unconsciously been the cause of this?'

'Or has anyone else consciously been so?' asked the lady, with meaning.

'What? You think--? Is it possible?'

'You only hinted that your relatives were not altogether pleased.'

Wilfrid, a light of anger flashing from his eyes, walked rapidly the
length of the room.

'She admitted to me,' he said, in a suppressed voice, 'that her illness
began before her father's death. It was not that that caused it. You
think that someone may have interfered? My father? Impossible! He is a
man of honour; he has written of her in the kindest way.'

But there was someone else. His father was honourable; could the same be
said of Mrs. Rossall? He remembered his conversation with her on the
lake of Thun; it had left an unpleasant impression on his mind--under
the circumstances, explicable enough. Was his aunt capable of dastardly
behaviour? The word could scarcely be applied to a woman's conduct, and
the fact that it could not made disagreeably evident the latitude
conceded to women in consideration of their being compelled to carry on
warfare in underhand ways. Suppose an anonymous letter. Would not Mrs.
Rossall regard that as a perfectly legitimate stratagem, if she had set
her mind on resisting this marriage? Easy, infinitely easy was it to
believe this, in comparison with any other explanation of Emily's
behaviour. In his haste to seize on a credible solution of the
difficulty, Wilfrid did not at first reflect that Emily was a very
unlikely person to be influenced by such means, still more unlikely that
she should keep such a thing secret from him. It must be remembered,
however, that the ways of treachery are manifold, and the idea had only
presented it to his mind in the most indefinite form. As it was, it
drove him almost to frenzy. He could not find a calm word, nor was it
indeed possible to communicate to Mrs. Baxendale the suspicion