‘O, not for me.  Don’t bring it,’ she said hastily.  ’I shouldn’t like you to.’

’Let me see—­to-morrow evening at seven or a few minutes past I shall be passing the waterfall on my way home.  I could conveniently give it you there, and I should like you to have it.’

He modulated into the Pastoral Symphony, still looking in her eyes.

‘Very well,’ she said, to get rid of the look.

The storm had by this time considerably decreased in violence, and in seven or ten minutes the sky partially cleared, the clouds around the western horizon becoming lighted up with the rays of the sinking sun.

Cytherea drew a long breath of relief, and prepared to go away.  She was full of a distressing sense that her detention in the old manor-house, and the acquaintanceship it had set on foot, was not a thing she wished.  It was such a foolish thing to have been excited and dragged into frankness by the wiles of a stranger.

‘Allow me to come with you,’ he said, accompanying her to the door, and again showing by his behaviour how much he was impressed with her.  His influence over her had vanished with the musical chords, and she turned her back upon him.  ‘May I come?’ he repeated.

’No, no.  The distance is not a quarter of a mile—­it is really not necessary, thank you,’ she said quietly.  And wishing him good-evening, without meeting his eyes, she went down the steps, leaving him standing at the door.

‘O, how is it that man has so fascinated me?’ was all she could think.  Her own self, as she had sat spell-bound before him, was all she could see.  Her gait was constrained, from the knowledge that his eyes were upon her until she had passed the hollow by the waterfall, and by ascending the rise had become hidden from his view by the boughs of the overhanging trees.

5.  SIX TO SEVEN P.M.

The wet shining road threw the western glare into her eyes with an invidious lustre which rendered the restlessness of her mood more wearying.  Her thoughts flew from idea to idea without asking for the slightest link of connection between one and another.  One moment she was full of the wild music and stirring scene with Manston—–­the next, Edward’s image rose before her like a shadowy ghost.  Then Manston’s black eyes seemed piercing her again, and the reckless voluptuous mouth appeared bending to the curves of his special words.  What could be those troubles to which he had alluded?  Perhaps Miss Aldclyffe was at the bottom of them.  Sad at heart she paced on:  her life was bewildering her.

On coming into Miss Aldclyffe’s presence Cytherea told her of the incident, not without a fear that she would burst into one of her ungovernable fits of temper at learning Cytherea’s slight departure from the programme.  But, strangely to Cytherea, Miss Aldclyffe looked delighted.  The usual cross-examination followed.

‘And so you were with him all that time?’ said the lady, with assumed severity.