ertram would shout. "Can there be a doubt? Can any one with
a heart doubt?" Adela said, "No; no one with a heart could doubt."

"She has no heart," said Bertram. "She is lovely, clever,
fascinating, elegant. She has everything a woman should have except a
heart--except a heart." And then, as he turned away his face, Adela
could see that he brushed his hand across his eyes.

What could she do but weep too? And is it not known to all
men--certainly it is to all women--how dangerous are such tears?

Thus during his stay at Hurst Staple, Bertram was frequently at West
Putford. But he observed that Adela was not often at his cousin's
vicarage, and that Arthur was very seldom at West Putford. The
families, it was clear, were on as good terms as ever. Adela and
Mary and Sophia would be together, and old Mr. Gauntlet would dine
at Hurst Staple, and Arthur would talk about the old rector freely
enough. But Bertram rarely saw Adela unless he went to the rectory,
and though he dined there with the Wilkinson girls three or four
times, Arthur only dined there once.

"Have you and Arthur quarrelled?" said he to Adela one day, laughing
as he spoke.

"Oh, no," said she; but she could not keep down her rebellious colour
as she answered him, and Bertram at once took the hint. To her he
said nothing further on that matter.

"And why don't you marry, Arthur?" he asked the next morning.

And Arthur also blushed, not thinking then of Adela Gauntlet, but of
that pledge which he had given to Lord Stapledean--a pledge of which
he had repented every day since he had given it.

And here it may be explained, that as Arthur Wilkinson had repented
of that pledge, and had felt more strongly from day to day that it
had put him in a false and unworthy position, so did his mother from
day to day feel with less force the compunction which she had at
first expressed as to receiving her son's income. This had become
less and less, and now, perhaps, it could no longer boast of an
existence. The arrangement seemed to her to be so essentially a
good one, her children were provided for in so convenient and so
comfortable a manner, it was so natural that she should regard
herself as the mistress of that house, that perhaps no blame is due
to her in that this compunction ceased. No blame is now heaped upon
her, and the fact is merely stated. She had already learned to regard
herself as the legal owner of that ecclesiastical income; and seeing
that her