I am afraid some hard thoughts about Mr. Rollo disturbed her mind, as she stood there looking.  What use had he made of his ticket to distress her darling?—­she such a mere child, and he with his mature twenty-five years?  But Mrs. Bywank did not dare to ask, even when the girl stirred and woke and rose up; though the ready flush, and the unready eyes, and the grave mouth, went to her very heart.  She noted, too, that her young lady went into no graphic descriptions of the ball, as was her wont; but merely bade Phoebe take away the two fancy dresses, and ensconced herself in a maze of soft white folds, and then went and knelt down by the open window; leaning her elbows there, and her chin on her hands.  Mrs. Bywank waited.

‘Miss Wych,’ she began after a while,—­’my dear, you have had no breakfast.’

‘I want none.’

‘But you will have some lunch?’

‘No.’

‘My dear,—­you must,’ said Mrs. Bywank.  ’You will be sick, Miss Wych.’

‘Don’t you say “must” to me, Byo!’ said the girl impetuously.  But then she started up and flung her arms round Mrs. Bywank and kissed her, and said, ’Come, let’s have some lunch, then!’—­giving half-a-dozen orders to Phoebe as she went along.  But the minute lunch was over, Wych Hazel stepped into her carriage and drove away.  Not the landau this time, through the September day was fair and soft; neither was the young lady arrayed in any wise for paying visits; her white cloud of morning muslin and lace, her broad gipsy hat, and gauntlets caught up and carried in her hand, not put on,—­so she bestowed herself in the close carriage which generally she used only by night.  And the low-spoken orders to Reo were, to take her a road she had never been, and drive till she told him to stop.  Then she threw herself back against the cushions, and buried her face in hands, and tried to think.

If that was to leave her ‘practically to Mr. Falkirk,’ her knowledge of English was somewhat deficient.  And if belonging to somebody merely ‘in idea’ had such results!—­but she was shy of the ‘idea,’ blushing over it there all by herself as she pushed it away.  She was disappointed, there was no doubt about that.  Foiled of her plan, over which she had pleased herself; for she had intended to give a ‘no’ instead of a ‘yes’ at the right place in the charade, to the discomfiture of all parties;—­curbed by a strong hand, which she never could bear; hurt and sorrowful that nobody would trust her with even the care of her own womanhood.

‘I wonder what there is about me?’ she cried to herself, with two or three indignant tears rushing up unbidden.  ’As if I had not had a sharper lesson the other night than any he could give!’—­No, quite that; the sharpest dated further back; but this would have been enough of itself.  And what else was she to do or not do?—­she took down her hands, and crossed them, and looked at them as she had done before the picture of the ‘loss of all things.’  These bonds did not feel like those; she did not like them, none the less;—­and—­she wondered what was his idea of close guardianship?  And had he made any misstatements?—­Reo drove on and on, till his practised eye saw that to get home by tea-time was all that was left, and then stopped and got permission to turn round.