Into what a pit had she suddenly plunged!  You ask why she did not drive away as fast as the horses would carry her, and fly the veiled head of Demogorgon obscuring valley and hill and the shining firmament, and threatening to glare destruction on her?  You do not know an intriguer.  She relinquishes the joys of life for the joys of intrigue.  This is her element.  The Countess did feel that the heavens were hard on her.  She resolved none the less to fight her way to her object; for where so much had conspired to favour her—­the decease of the generous Sir Abraham Harrington, of Torquay, and the invitation to Beckley Court—­could she believe the heavens in league against her?  Did she not nightly pray to them, in all humbleness of body, for the safe issue of her cherished schemes?  And in this, how unlike she was to the rest of mankind!  She thought so; she relied on her devout observances; they gave her sweet confidence, and the sense of being specially shielded even when specially menaced.  Moreover, tell a woman to put back, when she is once clearly launched!  Timid as she may be, her light bark bounds to meet the tempest.  I speak of women who do launch:  they are not numerous, but, to the wise, the minorities are the representatives.

‘Indeed, it is an intricate game!’ said the Countess, at the conclusion of the squire’s explanation, and leaned over to Mrs. Shorne to ask her if she thoroughly understood it.

‘Yes, I suppose I do,’ was the reply; ’it—­rather than the amusement they find in it.’  This lady had recovered Mr. Parsley from Rose, but had only succeeded in making the curate unhappy, without satisfying herself.

The Countess gave her the shrug of secret sympathy.

‘We must not say so,’ she observed aloud—­most artlessly, and fixed the squire with a bewitching smile, under which her heart beat thickly.  As her eyes travelled from Mrs. Shorne to the squire, she had marked Lady Racial looking singularly at Evan, who was mounting the horse of Bob the groom.

‘Fine young fellow, that,’ said the squire to Lady Racial, as Evan rode off with Rose.

‘An extremely handsome, well-bred young man,’ she answered.  Her eyes met the Countess’s, and the Countess, after resting on their surface with an ephemeral pause, murmured:  ‘I must not praise my brother,’ and smiled a smile which was meant to mean:  ’I think with you, and thank you, and love you for admiring him.’

Had Lady Racial joined the smile and spoken with animation afterwards, the Countess would have shuddered and had chills of dread.  As it was, she was passably content.  Lady Racial slightly dimpled her cheek, for courtesy’s sake, and then looked gravely on the ground.  This was no promise; it was even an indication (as the Countess read her), of something beyond suspicion in the lady’s mind; but it was a sign of delicacy, and a sign that her feelings had been touched, from which a truce might be reckoned on, and no betrayal feared.