Falcon followed up the dance by a call, and was infinitely agreeable:  followed up the call by another, and admired Rosa with so little disguise that Mr. Lusignan said to her, “I think you have made a conquest.  His father had considerable estates in Essex.  I presume he inherits them.”

“Oh, never mind his estates,” said Rosa, “he dances like an angel, and gossips charmingly, and is so nice.”

Christopher Staines pined for this girl in silence:  his fine frame got thinner, his pale cheek paler, as she got rosier and rosier; and how?  Why, by following the very advice she had snubbed him for giving her.  At last, he heard she had been the belle of a ball, and that she had been seen walking miles from home, and blooming as a Hebe.  Then his deep anxiety ceased, his pride stung him furiously; he began to think of his own value, and to struggle with all his might against his deep love.  Sometimes he would even inveigh against her, and call her a fickle, ungrateful girl, capable of no strong passion but vanity.  Many a hard term he applied to her in his sorrowful solitude; but not a word when he had a hearer.  He found it hard to rest:  he kept dashing up to London and back.  He plunged furiously into study.  He groaned and sighed, and fought the hard and bitter fight that is too often the lot of the deep that love the shallow.  Strong, but single-hearted, no other lady could comfort him.  He turned from female company, and shunned all for the fault of one.

The inward contest wore him.  He began to look very thin and wan; and all for a Simpleton!

Mr. Falcon prolonged his stay in the neighborhood, and drove a handsome dogcart over twice a week to visit Mr. Lusignan.

He used to call on that gentleman at four o’clock, for at that hour Mr. Lusignan was always out, and his daughter always at home.

She was at home at that hour because she took her long walks in the morning.  While her new admirer was in bed, or dressing, or breakfasting, she was springing along the road with all the elasticity of youth, and health, and native vigor, braced by daily exercise.

Twenty-one of these walks did she take, with no other result than health and appetite; but the twenty-second was more fertile—­extremely fertile.  Starting later than usual, she passed through Gravesend while Reginald Falcon was smoking at his front window.  He saw her, and instantly doffed his dressing-gown and donned his coat to follow her.  He was madly in love with her, and being a man who had learned to shoot pigeons and opportunities flying, he instantly resolved to join her in her walk, get her clear of the town, by the sea-beach, where beauty melts, and propose to her.  Yes, marriage had not been hitherto his habit, but this girl was peerless:  he was pledged by honor and gratitude to Phoebe Dale; but hang all that now.  “No man should marry one woman when he loves another; it is dishonorable.”  He got into the street and followed her as fast as he could without running.