Then Lily began to take an active part in the conversation, and a great deal was said about Mr Crawley, and about Grace, and Lily declared that she would be very anxious to hear any news which John Eames might be able to send.  ’You know, John, how fond we are of your cousin Grace, at Allington?  Are we not, uncle?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said the squire.  ‘I thought her a very nice girl.’

’If you should be able to learn anything that may be of use, John, how happy you will be.’

‘Yes, I shall,’ said John.

’And I think it’s so good of you to go, John.  But it is just like you.  You were always generous.’  Soon after that he got up and went.  It was very clear to him that he would have no moment in which to say a word alone to Lily; and if he could find such a moment, what good would such a word do him?  It was as yet but a few weeks since she had positively refused him.  And he too remembered very well those two words which she had told him she would write in her book.  As he had been coming to the house he had told himself that his coming would be—­could be of no use.  And yet he was disappointed with the result of his visit, although she had spoken to him so sweetly.

‘I suppose you’ll be gone when I get back,’ he said.

‘We shall be here a month,’ said the squire.

‘I shall be back long before that, I hope,’ said Johnny.  ’Good-bye, sir.  Good-bye, Dale.  Good-bye, Lily.’  And he put out his hand to her.

‘Good-bye, John.’  And then she added, almost in a whisper.  ’I think you are very, very right to go.’  How could he fail after that to hope as he walked home that she might still relent.  And she also thought much of him, but her thoughts of him made her cling more firmly than ever to those two words.  She could not bring herself to marry him; but, at least, she would not break his heart by becoming the wife of anyone else.  Soon after this Bernard Dale went also.  I am not sure that he had been well pleased at seeing John Eames become suddenly the hero of the hour.  When a young man is going to perform so important an act as marriage he is apt to think that he ought to be the hero of the hour himself—­at any rate among his own family.

Early on the next morning Lily was taken by her uncle to call upon Mrs Thorne, and to see Emily Dunstable.  Bernard was to meet them there, but it had been arranged that they should reach the house first.  ’There is nothing so absurd as these introductions,’ Bernard had said.  ’You go and look at her, and when you’ve had time to look at her, then I’ll come!’ So the squire and Lily went off to look at Emily Dunstable.

‘You don’t mean to say that she lives in that house?’ said Lily, when the cab was stopped before an enormous mansion in one of the most fashionable of the London squares.

‘I believe she does,’ said the squire.

’I never shall be able to speak to anybody living in such a house as that,’ said Lily.  ‘A duke couldn’t have anything grander.’