“Are you not almost too severe a student?” Mr. Barrett happened to say to Cornelia, the day after Wilfrid had worried her.

“Do I show the signs?” she replied.

“By no means.  But last night, was it not your light that was not extinguished till morning?”

“We soon have morning now,” said Cornelia; and her face was pale as the first hour of the dawn.  “Are you not a late foot-farer, I may ask in return?”

“Mere restlessness.  I have no appetite for study.  I took the liberty to cross the park from the wood, and saw you—­at least I guessed it your light, and then I met your brother.”

“Yes? you met him?”

Mr. Barrett gestured an affirmative.

“And he—­did he speak?”

“He nodded.  He was in some haste.”

“But, then, you did not go to bed at all that night?  It is almost my turn to be lecturer, if I might expect to be listened to.”

“Do you not know—­or am I constitutionally different from others?” Mr. Barrett resumed:  “I can’t be alone in feeling that there are certain times and periods when what I would like to call poisonous influences are abroad, that touch my fate in the days to come.  I know I am helpless.  I can only wander up and down.”

“That sounds like a creed of fatalism.”

“It is not a creed; it is a matter of nerves.  A creed has its ‘kismet.’  The nerves are wild horses.”

“It is something to be fought against,” said Cornelia admonishingly.

“Is it something to be distrusted?”

“I should say, yes.”

“Then I was wrong?”

He stooped eagerly, in his temperate way, to catch sight of her answering face.  Cornelia’s quick cheeks took fire.  She fenced with a question of two, and stood in a tremble, marvelling at his intuition.  For possibly, at that moment when he stood watching her window-light (ah, poor heart!) she was half-pledging her word to her sisters (in a whirl of wrath at Wilfrid, herself, and the world), that she would take the lead in breaking up Brookfield.

An event occurred that hurried them on.  They received a visit from their mother’s brother, John Pierson, a Colonel of Uhlans, in the Imperial-Royal service.  He had rarely been in communication with them; his visit was unexpected.  His leave of absence from his quarters in Italy was not longer than a month, and he was on his way to Ireland, to settle family business; but he called, as he said, to make acquaintance with his nieces.  The ladies soon discovered, in spite of his foreign-cut chin and pronounced military habit of speech and bearing, that he was at heart fervidly British.  His age was about fifty:  a man of great force of shoulder and potent length of arm, courteous and well-bred in manner, he was altogether what is called a model of a cavalry officer.  Colonel Pierson paid very little attention to his brother-in-law, but the ladies were evidently much to his taste; and when he kissed Cornelia’s hand, his eyes grew soft, as at a recollection.