The result proved that I had been right.  Mr. Egerton had a long interview with Mr. Darrell in the library next morning, during which his proposal was most firmly rejected.  Milly and I knew that he was in the house, and my poor girl walked up and down our sitting-room with nervously clasped hands and an ashy pale face all the time those two were together down-stairs.

She turned to me with a little piteous look when she heard Angus Egerton ride away from the front of the house.

‘O Mary, what is my fate to be?’ she asked.  ’I think he has been rejected.  I do not think he would have gone away without seeing me if the interview had ended happily.’

A servant came to summon us both to the library.  We went down together, Milly’s cold hand clasped in mine.

Mr. Darrell was not alone.  His wife was sitting with her back to the window, very pale, and with an angry brightness in her eyes.

‘Sit down, Miss Crofton,’ Mr. Darrell said very coldly; ’and you, Milly, come here.’

She went towards him with a slow faltering step, and sank down into the chair to which he pointed, looking at him all the time in an eager beseeching way that I think must have gone to his heart.  He was standing with his back to the empty fireplace, and remained standing throughout the interview.

‘I think you know that I love you, Milly,’ he began, ’and that your happiness is the chief desire of my mind.’

‘I’m sure of that, papa.’

‘And yet you have deceived me.’

‘Deceived you?  O papa, in what way?’

’By encouraging the hopes of a man whom you must have known I would never receive as your husband; by suffering your feelings to become engaged, without one word of warning to me, and in a manner that you must have known could not fail to be most obnoxious to me.’

’O papa, I did not know; it was only yesterday that Mr. Egerton spoke for the first time.  There has been nothing hidden from you.’

’Nothing?  Do you call your intimate acquaintance with this man nothing?  He may have delayed any actual declaration until my return—­ with an artful appearance of consideration for me; but some kind of love-affair must have been going on between you all the time.’

’No, indeed, papa; until yesterday there was never anything but the most ordinary acquaintance.  Mary knows—­’

‘Pray don’t appeal to Miss Crofton,’ her father interrupted sternly.  ’Miss Crofton has done very wrong in encouraging this affair.  Miss Crofton heard my opinion of Angus Egerton a long time ago.’

’Mary has done nothing to encourage our acquaintance.  It has been altogether a matter of accident from first to last.  What have you said to Mr. Egerton, papa?  Tell me at once, please.’

She said this with a quiet firmness, looking bravely up at him all the while.

’I have told him that nothing would induce me to consent to such a marriage.  I have forbidden him ever to see you again.’