“Shall I cultivate our visitors, Mr. and Mrs. Stevens?”

“Not for the world; we must let them slide quietly, and then people will begin to understand we don’t wish to be called on.”

“I daresay you are right; this house must be an oubliette till your awful uncle is confessed to.”  Bluebell spoke with some asperity; the concealment had become so unbearable.  What would the Rollestons think if her mother imparted to them her improbable story of being married to a man who could not acknowledge her?  And that dear old captain would most likely imagine the worst without her being able to undeceive him.  But Harry was deep in Bradshaw, and unobservant.

“I shall sleep in London, I think, and go down next morning.  Let me see, I shan’t be able to get away till after the new year.  Lord Bromley has the usual family gathering on for Christmas.”

“Won’t the time of your return somewhat depend on the way your communication is received?” asked Bluebell, demurely.

“Well, rather,” laughing.  “It won’t do to bring it in head and shoulders.  I must stay a little while first and watch my opportunity.”

Bluebell walked with him to the station next day.  It was freezing hard—­a bright, bracing morning; and when he had taken his place, and the train had whistled off, she was shocked to find how her spirits rose.  Of course, she told herself it was because there would soon be no occasion for concealment; but there was a sensation of present relief not quite to be accounted for by that.

Young people care quite as much as their elders for occasional solitude—­more, perhaps, for they have generally brighter thoughts to fill it.  Bluebell, from the reasons before mentioned, in her anxious compliance with his every whim, had become quite a slave to Harry, and a little breathing-time was far from unwelcome.  After all, she had a good deal exaggerated his sacrifice, which was made entirely to please himself!

Leaving the road, Bluebell struck a path across some fields leading to the river, and amused herself throwing sticks for Archie to fetch off its half-frozen surface—­a diversion which soon palled on the Skye, who was not fond of water; so Bluebell wandered on, soliloquizing, as usual.  Suppose this uncle, who loomed in her imagination like some dread Genie in his disposition over their fate should receive the intelligence by cutting off the supplies and hurling maledictions at Harry’s head, what on earth would they do?  She had always been very fond of acting,—­indeed, had been quite an authority in drawing-room theatricals and charades at “The Maples,” and with her magnificent powerful voice, what a pity she could not go on the stage!  She had read in novels of girls offering themselves to a manager and realizing fabulous sums, and eighteen pounds a year seemed to be her net value in the governess market.  Then Harry might go to sea for a year or two,—­they were both so young,—­and by that time things might look brighter, or the Genie relent.