‘Louis!’ said an entreating voice above, and there stood Mary—­’Pray say nothing, but call a cab for me, please.  No, I am not ill-indeed, I am not—­but I cannot stay!’

’You look ill!  It has been too much for you!  Clara, take her—­let her lie down quietly,’ cried Louis, springing to her side.

‘Oh no, thank you-no,’ said Mary, decidedly, though very low; ’I told Lady Conway that I could not stay.  I settled it with Aunt Melicent.’

‘That aunt of yours—­’

’Hush!  No, it is for my own sake—­my own doing.  I cannot bear it any longer!  Please let me go!’

’Then I will take you.  I saw the brougham waiting.  We will go quietly together.’

‘No, that must not be.’

’I was thoughtless in urgtng you to come.  The turmoil has been too much.  My poor Mary!  That is what comes of doing what I like instead of what you like.  Why don’t you always have your own way?  Let me come; nay, if you will not, at least let Clara go with you, and come back.’

Mary roused herself at last to speak, as she moved downstairs—­’You need not think of me; there is nothing the matter with me.  I promised Aunt Melicent to come home.  She is very kind—­it is not that.’

’You must not tell me not to think.  I shall come to inquire.  I shall be with you the first thing tomorrow.’

‘Yes, you must come to-morrow,’ said Mary, in a tone he could not interpret, and a tight lingering grasp on his hand, as he put her into his father’s carriage.

He stood hesitating for a moment as it drove off; then, instead of entering the house, walked off quickly in the same direction.

Clara had stood all the time like a statue on the stairs, waiting to see if she were wanted, and gazing intently, with her fingers clasped.  When both were gone she drew a long breath, and nodded with her head, whispering to herself, in a grave and critical voice—­’That is love!’

She did not see Fitzjocelyn again till nearly dinner-time; and, as he caught her anxious interrogating eye, he came to her and said, very low, ’I was not let in; Miss Ponsonby was engaged.  Miss Mary lying down—­I believe they never told her I was there.’

‘It is all that aunt—­horrid woman!’

‘Don’t talk of it now.  I will see her to-morrow.’

Clara grieved for him whenever she saw him called on to exert himself to talk; and she even guarded him from the sallies of his young cousins.  Once, when much music and talk was going on, he came and sat by her, and made her tell him how fondly and affectionately she had parted with her schoolfellows; and how some of her old foes had become, as she hoped, friends for life; but she saw his eye fixed and absent even while she spoke, and she left off suddenly.  ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘I like to hear;’ and with a manifest effort he bent his mind to attend.

‘Oh!’ thought Clara, as she went up that night—­’why will the days one most expects to be happy turn out so much otherwise?  However, he will manage to tell me all about it when he and his father take me home to-morrow.’