exorcised. The fashion of her mind was
altogether different from that which had so strongly prevailed
with her. He was an honest, noble man, high in the world's repute,
clever, a gentleman, a man of taste, and possessed of that gentle
ever-present humour which was so inexpressibly delightful to her. She
never again spoke to herself even in her thoughts of that Angel of
Light,--never comforted herself again with the vision of that which
was to come! There had appeared to her a man better than all other
men, and when he had asked her for her hand she had simply said,--"I
cannot." And yet she had loved him all the time. How foolish, how
false, how wicked she had been! It was thus that she thought of it
all as she sat there alone in her bedroom through the long hours of
the afternoon. When they sent up for her asking her to come down, she
begged that she might be allowed to remain there till dinner-time,
because she was tired with her walk.

He would not come again now. Oh, no,--he was too proud, too firm,
too manly for that. It was not for such a one as he to come whining
after a girl,--like her cousin Tom. Would it be possible that she
should even yet tell him? Could she say to him one little word,
contradicting that which she had so often uttered in the wood?
"Now I can," once whispered in his ear, would do it all. But as to
this she was aware that there was no room for hope. To speak such
a word, low as it might be spoken, simple and little as it might
be, was altogether impossible. She had had her chance and had lost
it,--because of those idle dreams. That the dreams had been all idle
she declared to herself,--not aware that the Ayala whom her lover had
loved would not have been an Ayala to be loved by him, but for the
dreams. Now she must go back to her uncle and aunt and to Kingsbury
Crescent, with the added sorrow that the world of dreams was closed
to her for ever. When the maid came to her she consented to have
the frock put on, the frock which Sir Harry had given her, boldly
resolving to struggle through her sorrow till Lady Albury should have
dismissed her to her home. Nobody would want her now at Stalham, and
the dismissal would soon come.

While she had been alone in her room the Colonel had been closeted
with Lady Albury. They had at least been thus shut up together for
some half-hour during which he had told his tale. "I have to own,"
said he, half-laughing as he began his tale, "that I thoroughly
respec