l, and said no further word on the subject
which they had been discussing. When Lady Macleod got up to go away,
Alice kissed her, as was customary with them, and the old lady as
she went uttered her customary valediction. "God bless you, my dear.
Good-bye! I'll come to-morrow if I can." There was therefore no
quarrel between them. But both of them felt that words had been
spoken which must probably lead to some diminution of their past
intimacy.

When Lady Macleod had gone Alice sat alone for an hour thinking of
what had passed between them,--thinking rather of those two men, the
worthy man and the wild man, whose names had been mentioned in close
connection with herself. John Grey was a worthy man, a man worthy at
all points, as far as she knew him. She told herself it was so. And
she told herself, also, that her cousin George was wild,--very wild.
And yet her thoughts were, I fear, on the whole more kindly towards
her cousin than towards her lover. She had declared to her aunt that
John Grey would be incapable of such suspicion as would be shown by
any objection on his part to the arrangements made for the tour. She
had said so, and had so believed; and yet she continued to brood
over the position which her affairs would take, if he did make the
objection which Lady Macleod anticipated. She told herself over and
over again, that under such circumstances she would not give way an
inch. "He is free to go," she said to herself. "If he does not trust
me he is quite free to go." It may almost be said that she came at
last to anticipate from her lover that very answer to her own letter
which she had declared him to be incapable of making.

CHAPTER III

John Grey, the Worthy Man

Mr Grey's answer to Alice Vavasor's letter, which was duly sent by
return of post and duly received on the morning after Lady Macleod's
visit, may perhaps be taken as giving a sample of his worthiness. It
was dated from Nethercoats, a small country-house in Cambridgeshire
which belonged to him, at which he already spent much of his time,
and at which he intended to live altogether after his marriage.

Nethercoats, June, 186--.

DEAREST ALICE,

I am glad you have settled your affairs,--foreign affairs,
I mean,--so much to your mind. As to your home affairs
they are not, to my thinking, quite so satisfactorily
arranged. But as I am a party interested in the latter my
opinion may perhaps have an undue bias. Touc