her
wall, causing the ornaments on it to rattle. And so doing, she gave a
plaintive exclamation of alarm, perhaps even of physical pain. Hearing
which, that nameless agitation, that sense of collision with unknown
and incalculable forces, seized hold on Honoria again, while Lord
Shotover's features contracted and he turned his head sharply.

"By George!" he repeated under his breath.

But the girl recovered herself, and, followed by her companion,--he
still pleading, she still protesting,--passed by the further window on
to the balcony and out of sight. There followed a period of embarrassed
silence on the part of the usually voluble Shotover, while his pleasant
countenance expressed a certain half-humorous concern.

"Really, I'm awfully sorry," he said. "I'd not the slightest intention
of landing you in for the thick of the brown like this.".

"Or yourself either," she replied, smiling, though, with that sense of
nameless agitation still upon her, her heart beat rather quick.

"Well, perhaps not. Between ourselves, moral courage isn't my strong
point. There's nothing I funk like a row. I say, what shall we do?
Don't you think we'd better quietly clear out?"

But just then a sound caught Honoria's ear before which all vague
questions of ultimate truth and falsehood, right and wrong fled away.
Whatever might savour of illusion, here was something real and actual,
something pitiful, moreover, arousing the spirit of knight-errantry in
her, pushing her to lay lance in rest and go forth, reckless of
conventionalities, reckless even of considerations of justice, to the
succour of oppressed womanhood. What words the man, on the balcony
without, was saying she could not distinguish--whether cruel or kind,
but that the young girl was weeping, with the abandonment of
long-resisted tears, she could not doubt.

"No, no, listen Lord Shotover," she exclaimed authoritatively. "Don't
you hear? She is crying as if her poor heart would break. You must
stay. If I understand you rightly your sister has only got you to
depend on. Whatever happens you must stand by her and see her through."

"Oh! but, my dear Miss St. Quentin----" The young man's aspect was
entertaining. He looked at the floor, he looked at Honoria, he rubbed
the back of his neck with one hand as though there might be placed the
seat of fortitude. "You're inviting me to put my head into the
liveliest hornet's nest. What the deuce--excuse me--am I to say to her
and a