, speaking with her head high, and in
her harshest and most scornful tone, 'that I may do neither the one nor
the other, but be pleased to kill my time with you--since I must stay
here until my lawyer has done his business?'

'Oh!' said Soane, staring helplessly at the angry beauty, 'if that be
all--'

'That is all!' she cried. 'Do you understand? That is all.'

He bowed gravely. 'Then I am glad that I have been of use to you. That
at least,' he said.

'Thank you,' she said drily. 'I am going into the house now. I need not
trouble you farther.'

And sweeping him a curtsey that might have done honour to a duchess, she
turned and sailed away, the picture of disdain. But when her face was
safe from his gaze and he could no longer see them, her eyes filled with
tears of shame and vexation; she had to bite her trembling lip to keep
them back. Presently she slackened her speed and almost stopped--then
hurried on, when she thought that she heard him following. But he did
not overtake her, and Julia's step grew slow again, and slower until she
reached the portico.

Between love and pride, hope and shame, she had a hard fight; happily a
coach was unloading, and she could stand and feign interest in the
passengers. Two young fellows fresh from Bath took fire at her eyes; but
one who stared too markedly she withered with a look, and, if the truth
be told, her fingers tingled for his ears. Her own ears were on the
alert, directed backwards like a hare's. Would he never come? Was he
really so simple, so abominably stupid, so little versed in woman's
ways? Or was he playing with her? Perhaps, he had gone into the town? Or
trudged up the Salisbury road; if so, and if she did not see him now,
she might not meet him until the next morning; and who could say what
might happen in the interval? True, he had promised that he would not
leave Marlborough without seeing her; but things had altered between
them since then.

At last--at last, when she felt that her pride would allow her to stay
no longer, and she was on the point of going in, the sound of his step
cut short her misery. She waited, her heart beating quickly, to hear his
voice at her elbow. Presently she heard it, but he was speaking to
another; to a coarse rough man, half servant half loafer, who had joined
him, and was in the act of giving him a note. Julia, outwardly cool,
inwardly on tenterhooks, saw so much out of the corner of her eye, and
that the two, while they s