Mr. Fairfax’s letter to madame announced in simple terms the object of Mr. Cecil Burleigh’s mission to Bayeux, and as the gentleman recited it by word of mouth she grew freezingly formal.  To lose Bessie would be a loss that she had been treating as deferred.  Certainly, also, the ways of the English are odd!  To send the young lady on a two days’ journey with this strange gentleman, who was no relative, was impossible.  So well brought up as Bessie had been since she came to Caen, she would surely refuse the alternative, and decide to remain at school.  Madame replied to the announcement that Miss Fairfax would appear in a few minutes, and would of course speak for herself.  But Bessie was in no haste to meet the envoy from Kirkham after parting with her beloved Harry, and when a quarter of an hour had elapsed, and there was still no sign of her coming, Babette was despatched to the top of the house to bring her down to the interview.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh had taken a chair opposite the door, and he watched for its reopening with a visible and vivid interest.  It opened, and Bessie walked in with that stately erectness of gait which was characteristic of the women of her race.  “As upright as a Fairfax,” was said of them in more senses than one.  She was blushing, and her large dark blue eyes had the softness of recent tears.  She curtseyed, school-girl fashion, to her grandfather’s envoy, and her graceful proud humility set him instantly at a distance.  His programme was to be lordly, affable, tenderly patronizing, but his dark cheek flushed, and self-possessed as he was, both by nature and habit, he was suddenly at a loss how to address this stiff princess about whom he had expected to find some rags of Cophetua still hanging.  But the rags were all gone, and the little gypsy of the Forest was become a lady.

Madame intervened with needful explanations.  Bessie comprehended the gist of the embassage very readily.  She must take heart for an immediate encounter with her grandfather and all her other difficulties, or she must resign herself to a fourth year of exile and of school.  Her mind was at once made up.  Since the morning—­how long ago it seemed!—­an ardent wish to return to England had begun to glow in her imagination.  She wanted her real life to begin.  These dull, monotonous school-days were only a prelude which had gone on long enough.  Therefore she said, with brief consideration, that her choice would be to return home.

“To Kirkham understand, ma cherie, not to Beechhurst,” said madame softly, warningly.

“To Kirkham, so be it!  Sooner or later I must go there,” answered Bessie with brave resignation.