s sadly probable, lived on
indefinitely with Harry's future still unassured.

Dutton blushed a little under Kate's gaze, which affixed a serious
meaning to his insincere words; but his eyes returned the challenge in
hers, though the girl saw in an instant that the expression was not
spontaneous, and Harry felt equally sure that the passion latent in his
cousin's was more for "The Towers" than himself; and then he laughed
inwardly as he thought how different it would be if she knew he was
married.

Several days passed, and the object of Harry's visit was still
unfulfilled. Indeed, a good opportunity for the disclosure seemed more
remote than ever. Kate monopolized all the men in the house, and, being
at home, Dutton, in common decency, could not suffer Lady Geraldine to be
neglected. There were only those two girls staying at "The Towers."
Others sometimes came to dinner with their parents, and an _impromptu_
dance was often got up. Geraldine had begun to listen for Harry's step,
seat herself near a vacant chair, and thrill with delight when he took
it. No man dislikes such unconscious flattery, and Dutton, ill at ease in
mind, felt himself soothed by her kindness.

On these occasions, Lord Bromley appeared bland and agreeable, Lady
Calvert voluble and unobserving, and there was a sense of _bien-etre_
over every one, Kate, perhaps, excepted.

Dutton had received one letter from his wife. He had had a five mile-walk
to get it from the post town he had bidden her address to, and opened it
with a strange mixture of curiosity and yearning. It was a very bright
letter, made no complaints of loneliness, and was rather divertingly
written, considering the limited topics at her command; and yet Harry
crunched it up in his hand with a sensation of half anger and whole
disappointment. It was their first separation,--they had not been married
seven weeks,--and there was scarcely an expression of affection in it!

He felt like a schoolboy who has coveted and caught some pretty wild
animal for a pet, yet cannot succeed in making it fond of him.

He laughed rather bitterly as he retraced his steps. It was scarcely
worth the cold, companionless walk, or the pains he had taken to evade
the rest.

Why should he risk offending his uncle to please her? If that, indeed,
were all, he did not know that he should. But new considerations came in.
We were on the eve of drifting into the Crimean War; the papers were
getting more and more