’Damn my position!  Why shouldn’t I be happy through my little day too?  Let the parish sneer at my repulses, let it.  I’ll get her, if I move heaven and earth to do it!’

Indeed, the inexperienced Cytherea had, towards Edward in the first place, and Manston afterwards, unconsciously adopted bearings that would have been the very tactics of a professional fisher of men who wished to have them each successively dangling at her heels.  For if any rule at all can be laid down in a matter which, for men collectively, is notoriously beyond regulation, it is that to snub a petted man, and to pet a snubbed man, is the way to win in suits of both kinds.  Manston with Springrove’s encouragement would have become indifferent.  Edward with Manston’s repulses would have sheered off at the outset, as he did afterwards.  Her supreme indifference added fuel to Manston’s ardour—­it completely disarmed his pride.  The invulnerable Nobody seemed greater to him than a susceptible Princess.

4.  FROM THE TWENTY-FIRST OF JUNE TO THE END OF JULY

Cytherea had in the meantime received the following letter from her brother.  It was the first definite notification of the enlargement of that cloud no bigger than a man’s hand which had for nearly a twelvemonth hung before them in the distance, and which was soon to give a colour to their whole sky from horizon to horizon.

’BUDMOUTH REGIS,

Saturday.

’DARLING SIS,—­I have delayed telling you for a long time of a little matter which, though not one to be seriously alarmed about, is sufficiently vexing, and it would be unfair in me to keep it from you any longer.  It is that for some time past I have again been distressed by that lameness which I first distinctly felt when we went to Lulstead Cove, and again when I left Knapwater that morning early.  It is an unusual pain in my left leg, between the knee and the ankle.  I had just found fresh symptoms of it when you were here for that half-hour about a month ago—­when you said in fun that I began to move like an old man.  I had a good mind to tell you then, but fancying it would go off in a few days, I thought it was not worth while.  Since that time it has increased, but I am still able to work in the office, sitting on the stool.  My great fear is that Mr. G. will have some out-door measuring work for me to do soon, and that I shall be obliged to decline it.  However, we will hope for the best.  How it came, what was its origin, or what it tends to, I cannot think.  You shall hear again in a day or two, if it is no better. . .—­Your loving brother, OWEN.’

This she answered, begging to know the worst, which she could bear, but suspense and anxiety never.  In two days came another letter from him, of which the subjoined paragraph is a portion:—­

’I had quite decided to let you know the worst, and to assure you that it was the worst, before you wrote to ask it.  And again I give you my word that I will conceal nothing—­so that there will be no excuse whatever for your wearing yourself out with fears that I am worse than I say.  This morning then, for the first time, I have been obliged to stay away from the office.  Don’t be frightened at this, dear Cytherea.  Rest is all that is wanted, and by nursing myself now for a week, I may avoid an illness of six months.’