The girls all looked at Elsie with a new thought; for she was more sumptuously arrayed than perhaps ever before at the school; and they said to themselves that she had come meaning to draw the young master’s eyes upon her.  That was it; what else could it be?  The beautiful, cold girl with the diamond eyes meant to dazzle the handsome young gentleman.  He would be afraid to love her; it couldn’t be true, that which some people had said in the village; she wasn’t the kind of young lady to make Mr. Langdon happy.  Those dark people are never safe:  so one of the young blondes said to herself.  Elsie was not literary enough for such a scholar:  so thought Miss Charlotte Ann Wood, the young poetess.  She couldn’t have a good temper, with those scowling eyebrows:  this was the opinion of several broad-faced, smiling girls, who thought, each in her own snug little mental sanctum, that, if, etc., etc. she could make him so happy!

Elsie had none of the still, wicked light in her eyes, that morning.  She looked gentle, but dreamy; played with her books; did not trouble herself with any of the exercises,—­which in itself was not very remarkable, as she was always allowed, under some pretext or other, to have her own way.

The school-hours were over at length.  The girls went out, but she lingered to the last.  She then came up to Mr. Bernard, with a book in her hand, as if to ask a question.

“Will you walk towards my home with me to-day?” she said, in a very low voice, little more than a whisper.

Mr. Bernard was startled by the request, put in such a way.  He had a presentiment of some painful scene or other.  But there was nothing to be done but to assure her that it would give him great pleasure.

So they walked along together on their way toward the Dudley mansion.

“I have no friend,” Elsie said, all at once.  “Nothing loves me but one old woman.  I cannot love anybody.  They tell me there is something in my eyes that draws people to me and makes them faint.  Look into them, will you?”

She turned her face toward him.  It was very pale, and the diamond eyes were glittering with a film, such as beneath other lids would have rounded into a tear.

“Beautiful eyes, Elsie,” he said,—­“sometimes very piercing,—­but soft now, and looking as if there were something beneath them that friendship might draw out.  I am your friend, Elsie.  Tell me what I can do to render your life happier.”

“Love me!” said Elsie Venner.

What shall a man do, when a woman makes such a demand, involving such an avowal?  It was the tenderest, cruellest, humblest moment of Mr. Bernard’s life.  He turned pale, he trembled almost, as if he had been a woman listening to her lover’s declaration.