“After that, reproach one with chivalry,” said Alick, lightly.  “Nay, I beg your pardon.  Shall I take any message down to Mackarel Lane?”

“Are you going?”

“Well, yes, though I hardly ought to venture there till this embargo is taken off; for she is the one person there will be some pleasure in talking to.  Perhaps I may reckon you as the same in effect.”

The Colonel responded with a less cheerful look than usual, adding, “I don’t know whether to congratulate you, Alick, on having to ask no one’s consent but your own at your age.”

“Especially not my guardian’s!” said Alick, with the desired effect of making him laugh.

“No, if you were my son, I would not interfere,” he added gravely.  “I only feared your not knowing what you were about.  I see you do know it, and it merely becomes a question of every man to his taste—­ except for one point, Alick.  I am afraid there may have been much disturbance of her opinions.”

“Surface work,” said Alick, “some of the effects of the literature that paints contradiction as truth.  It is only skin deep, and makes me wish all the more to have her with my uncle for a time.  I wonder whether Grace would let me in if I went back again!”

No, Grace was obdurate.  Mr. Frampton had spoken of a nervous fever, and commanded perfect quiescence; and Grace was the less tempted to transgress the order, because she really thought her mother was more in love with “dear Alexander” than Rachel was.  Rachel was exceedingly depressed, restless, and feverish, and shrank from her mother’s rejoicing, declaring that she was mistaken, and that nothing more must be said.  She had never consented, and he must not make such a sacrifice; he would not when he knew better.  Nay, in some moods, Rachel seemed to think even the undefined result of the interview an additional humiliation, and to feel herself falling, if not fallen, from her supreme contempt of love and marriage.  The hurry, and the consent taken for granted, had certainly been no small elements in her present disturbed and overwhelmed state; and Grace, though understanding the motive, was disposed to resent the over-haste.  Calm and time to think were promised to Rachel, but the more she had of both the more they hurt her.  She tossed restlessly all night, and was depressed to the lowest ebb by day; but on the second day, ill as she evidently was, she insisted on seeing Captain Keith, declaring that she should never be better till she had made him understand her.  Her nurses saw that she was right; and, besides, Mrs. Curtis’s pity was greatly touched by dear Alexander’s entreaties.  So, as a desperate experiment, he was at last allowed to go into the dressing-room, where she was lying on the sofa.  He begged to enter alone, only announced by a soft knock, to which she replied with a listless “Come in,” and did not look up till she suddenly became conscious of a footfall firmer though softer than those she was used to.  She turned, and saw who it was who stood at a window opposite to her feet, drawing up the Venetian blind, from whose teasing divisions of glare and shade she had been hiding her eyes from the time she had come in, fretted by the low continuous tap of its laths upon the shutters.  Her first involuntary exclamation was a sigh of relief.