ed her as one
who was about to become one of ourselves. But what are her tricks and
graces to us now?"

"They are all the world to me," said the Colonel.

"But you must wipe them out of your memory,--unless, indeed, you mean
to ask her again."

"Ah!--that is it."

"You will ask her again?"

"I do not say so; but I do not wish to rob myself of the chance. It
may be that I shall. Of course I should to-morrow if I thought there
was a hope. To-morrow there would be none,--but I should like to
know, that I could find her again in hands so friendly as yours,
if at the end of a month I should think myself strong enough to
encounter the risk of another refusal. Would Sir Harry allow her to
remain here for another month?"

"He would say, probably, nothing about it."

"My plan is this," he continued; "let her remain here, say, for three
weeks or a month. Do you continue all your kindness to her,--if not
for her sake then for mine. Let her feel that she is made one of
yourselves, as you say."

"That will be hard," said Lady Albury.

"It would not be hard if you thought that she was going to become so
at last. Try it, for my sake. Say not a word to her about me,--though
not shunning my name. Be to her as though I had told you nothing of
this. Then when the period is over I will come again,--if I find
that I can do so. If my love is still stronger than my sense of
self-respect, I shall do so." All this Lady Albury promised to do,
and then the interview between them was over.

"Colonel Stubbs is going to Aldershot to-morrow," said she to Ayala
in the drawing-room after dinner. "He finds now that he cannot very
well remain away." There was no hesitation in her voice as she said
this, and no look in her eye which taught Ayala to suppose that she
had heard anything of what had occurred in the wood.

"Is he indeed?" said Ayala, trying, but in vain, to be equally
undemonstrative.

"It is a great trouble to us, but we are quite unable to prevent
it,--unless you indeed can control him."

"I cannot control him," said Ayala, with that fixed look of
resolution with which Lady Albury had already become familiar.

That evening before they went to bed the Colonel bade them all
good-bye, as he intended to start early in the morning. "I never saw
such a fellow as you are for sudden changes," said Sir Harry.

"What is the good of staying here for hunting when the ground and
Tony's temper are both as hard as brick-bats. If I go n