ll Fanny Russell was gone.
Where was constancy to draw the line? A man was not less a man because
he was also a mounted policeman. He might even be grandiloquently
styled, by those who were particular about the names of things, the
soldier of peace. Still Dora had an irresistible conception of the
pained disdain, the latent superciliousness, which would have sprung
into full force in Fanny's dark eyes, if she had ever seen the once
magnificent Cyril in the most careful modification of a _bobby's_
braided tunic and helmet.

Bell Hewett would not look so, if she, in her school-mistress character,
met Cyril at Deweshurst. Bell, like Dora, would feel her heart soften
and warm to Cyril in his misfortunes. She would think of Ned, and hurry
up to Ned's old playfellow and chum, to tell him the last news from
Yorkshire, and ask what message from him she should send to Ned in her
next letter. Dora was tempted to go on and wonder whether Cyril's heart
would not be touched in turn by the cordial recognition of his Rector's
daughter, who had, on the whole, kept her position better than he, with
his advantages, had kept his, whose frank greeting had become a kind of
credential of gentle birth and breeding afforded to him in full sight of
the natives of Deweshurst. If he felt all that, he must recognize how
womanly and sweet Bell was, though she was not pretty and not one bit
clever, and be full of gratitude to her. And gratitude combined with
considerable isolation on the one hand, and on the other the constantly
present possibility of agreeable encounters with a loyal old friend,
might lead to anything--to a good deal more than Dora cared to say even
to herself, feeling frightened at the length to which she had gone on
the spur of the moment in this most recklessly unworldly match-making.
Yet was it reckless, when Bell would be such a good poor man's wife, and
when marriage with a woman like Bell might make another man of Cyril
Carey?

However, the Careys' adversity, with its reaction on their old
associates, approached a climax shortly after Cyril left. His father
grew so much more helpless an invalid that it was found absolutely
necessary to have a resident nurse for him. Then Mrs. Carey, though she
continued the nurse-in-chief, stated clearly and dispassionately that
she was now sufficiently disengaged to look after her house and give her
single servant what assistance she required. Therefore, as it was high
time that Phyllis s