’And precisely because I met you, of all men, I’ve been going round and round ever since,’ said Jack.  ’A clown or pantaloon would have given me balance.  Say no more.  You couldn’t help it.  We met because we were the two extremes.’

Sighing, ‘What a jolly old inn!’ Raikes rolled himself over in the sheets, and gave two or three snug jolts indicative of his determination to be comfortable while he could.

‘Do you intend to carry on this folly, Jack?’

‘Say, sacrifice,’ was the answer.  ’I feel it as much as you possibly could, Mr. Harrington.  Hear the facts,’ Jack turned round again.  ’Why did I consent to this absurdity?  Because of my ambition.  That old fellow, whom I took to be a clerk of Messrs. Grist, said:  “You want to cut a figure in the world—­you’re armed now.”  A sort of Fortunatus’s joke.  It was his way of launching me.  But did he think I intended this for more than a lift?  I his puppet?  He, sir, was my tool!  Well, I came.  All my efforts were strained to shorten the period of penance.  I had the best linen, and put on captivating manners.  I should undoubtedly have won some girl of station, and cast off my engagement like an old suit, but just mark!—­now mark how Fortune tricks us!  After the pic-nic yesterday, the domestics of the house came to clear away, and the band being there, I stopped them and bade them tune up, and at the same time seizing the maid Wheedle, away we flew.  We danced, we whirled, we twirled.  Ale upon this!  My head was lost.  “Why don’t it last for ever?” says I.  “I wish it did,” says she.  The naivete enraptured me.  “Oooo!” I cried, hugging her, and then, you know, there was no course open to a man of honour but to offer marriage and make a lady of her.  I proposed:  she accepted me, and here I am, eternally tied to this accurst insignia, if I’m to keep my promise!  Isn’t that a sacrifice, friend H.?  There’s no course open to me.  The poor girl is madly in love.  She called me a “rattle!” As a gentleman, I cannot recede.’

Evan got up and burst into damnable laughter at this burlesque of himself.  Telling the fellow the service he required, and receiving a groaning assurance that the letter should, without loss of time, be delivered in proper style, the egoist, as Jack heartily thought him, fell behind his; knitted brows, and, after musing abstractedly, went forth to light upon his fate.

But a dread of meeting had seized both Rose and Evan.  She had exhausted her first sincerity of unbelief in her interview with Juliana:  and he had begun to consider what he could say to her.  More than the three words ’I did it,’ would not be possible; and if she made him repeat them, facing her truthful eyes, would he be man enough to strike her bared heart twice?  And, ah! the sullen brute he must seem, standing before her dumb, hearing her sigh, seeing her wretched effort not to show how unwillingly her kind spirit despised him.  The reason for the act—­she would ask for that!  Rose would