“I’ll take the greatest care of you, Mrs. Leigh,” said Jack, heartily, grateful for a re-assuring nod from Bluebell in recognition of his contrite gallantry.  The mare, tired of waiting, became fidgety to be off.

“Oh, he is going to prance.  Have you got good hold of his head, sir?” to the groom.

“Quite correct, ’m,” grinned that official.  “Quiet, ‘Nancy,’” that being the stable version of “Banshee.”

“Let her go,” said Jack, who had just tucked Mrs. Leigh in.  A couple of bounds, a smothering scream, and they disappeared in the evening gloom.

“That there old party ain’t the guvener’s usual form,” meditated that bat-man, as he walked back, for the cutter only carried two.  “He seems to set a deal of store by her, though.  There’s some young ’ooman at home, where she lives, I’d take my dying dick.”

Cecil and her father, who had seen them off, stopped laughing together at Mrs. Leigh’s peculiarities; and Bluebell, finding herself alone with Mrs. Rolleston, felt impelled to try if she could not curtail her sentence of banishment.  Of course, her words were intended to conceal her thoughts—­love’s first lesson is always hypocrisy.

“I know I am not very much use here,” she began, “but still I shouldn’t like to think I was of none, and, therefore, I really don’t want to stay away more than a day or two.”

A sudden look of penetration came into Mrs. Rolleston’s face, and, with more sarcasm in her voice than Bluebell’s little speech appeared to justify, she said,—­

“My dear, scrupulous child, we can get on without you longer than that, so you may, with a clear conscience, think of your mother, who is dull this dreadful weather.”

Bluebell felt caught in a mesh and incapable of extricating herself, but she made no attempt to conceal her reluctance to going.

“How long must I stay away?” said she, dolefully.

“Just till the days get a little longer—­a fortnight or three weeks, perhaps.”

Bluebell made a gesture of despair (Bertie would be gone to a certainty by then), and looked the picture of misery.  Mrs. Rolleston’s suspicions were now convictions.

“My dear Bluebell,” she began, impulsively, “I know there’s some reason for your dislike to going,” and she gazed fixedly at her.  No denial.  Bluebell hoped Mrs. Rolleston had some inkling of how things were with her and Bertie, and had she then persisted might easily have forced her confidence; which would have considerably enlightened and dismayed the elder lady, whose mind, being full of Jack, had never dreamed of Bertie.

Mrs. Rolleston, however, rapidly decided it would never do to encourage her to talk of the matter, and that she had better put her foot on it at once.

“I have guessed your little penchant, dear, for some one we won’t talk about, for indeed, Bluebell, it never can come to any thing; you are both too young and too poor.  It would be a most undesirable connexion.”