It was after a whispered conference with Miss Gascoigne that the wife of the vice chancellor, herself young and handsome, and lately married, came up to ask Christian to sing.

Then, poor girl! all her fears and doubts returned.  To sing to a whole roomful of people—­she had never done it in her life.  It would be as bad as that nightmare fancy which used to haunt her, of being dragged forward to find the ten thousand eyes of a crowded theater all focused upon her, a sensation almost as horrible as being under a burning-glass.

“Oh no! not tonight.  I would much rather not.  Indeed, I can not sing.”

“May I beg to be allowed to deny that fact?” said the gentleman—­a young gentleman upon whose arm the hostess had crossed the room—­of whom she, a stranger in Avonsbridge, knew only that he was a baronet and had fifteen thousand a year.

“Well, Sir Edwin, try if you can persuade her.  Mrs. Grey, let me present to you Sir Edwin Uniacke.”

It was so sudden, and the compulsion of the moment so extreme, that Christian stood calm as death—­stood and bowed, and he bowed too, as in response to an ordinary introduction to a perfect stranger.  She was quite certain afterward that she had not betrayed herself by any emotion; that, as seemed her only course, she had risen and walked straight to the piano, her fingers just touching Sir Edwin’s offered arm; that she had seated herself, and begun mechanically to take off her gloves, without one single word having been exchanged between them.

The young man took his place behind her chair.  She never looked toward him—­never paused to think how he had come there, or to wonder over the easy conscience of the world, which had readmitted him into the very society whence he had lately been ignominiously expelled.  Her sole thought was that there was a song to be sung and she had to sing it, and go back as fast as she could into some safe hiding-place.  Having accomplished this, she rose.

“Not yet, pray; one more song.  Surely you know it—­’Love in thine eyes.’”

As the voice behind her—­a voice so horribly familiar, said this, Christian turned round.  To ignore him was impossible; to betray, by the slightest sign, the quiver of fear, of indignation, which ran through all her frame, that, too, was equally impossible.  One thing only presented itself to her as to be done.  She lifted up her cold, clear eyes, fixed them on him, and equally cold and clear her few commonplace words fell: 

“No, I thank you; I prefer not to sing any more to-night.”  What answer was made, or how, still touching Sir Edwin’s arm, she was piloted back through the crowd to Miss Gascoigne’s side, Christian had not the slightest recollection either then afterward; she only knew that she did it, and he did it, and that he then bowed politely and left her.

So it was all over.  They had met, she and her sometime lover, her preux chevalier of a month—­met, and she did not love him any more.  Not an atom!  All such feelings had been swept away, crushed out of existence by the total crushing of that respect and esteem without which no good woman can go on loving.  At least no woman like Christian could.