“Are you sure you are not wasting it now?”

It was not possible to continue the subject.  Mr. Ogilvie had failed in both his attempts to rouse Armine, and had to tell his mother, who had hoped much from this new influence.  “I think,” he said, “that Armine is partly feeling the change from invalidism to ordinary health.  He does not know it, poor fellow; but it is rather hard to give up being interesting.”

Caroline saw the truth of this when Armine showed himself absolutely nettled at his brothers, on their arrival, pronouncing that he looked much better—-in fact quite jolly, an insult which he treated with Christian forgiveness.

Bobus had visited Belforest.  His mother had never intended this, and still less that he should walk direct from the station to Kencroft, surprising the whole family at luncheon, and taking his seat among them quite naturally.  Thereby he obtained all he had expected or hoped, for when the meal was over, he was able, though in the presence of all the family, to take Esther by both hands, and say in his resolute earnest voice, “Good-bye, my sweet and only love.  You will wait for me, and by-and-by, when I have made you a home, and people see things differently, I shall come for you,” and therewith he pressed on her burning, blushing, drooping brow four kisses that felt like fire.

Her mother might fret and her father might fume, but they were as powerless as the parents of young Lochinvar’s bride, and the words of their protest were scarcely begun when he loosed the girl’s hands, and, turning to her mother, said, “Good-bye, Aunt Ellen.  When we meet again, you will see things otherwise.  I ask nothing till that time comes.”

This was not the part of his visit of which he told his mother, he only dwelt on a circumstance so opportune that he had almost been forgiven even by the Colonel.  He had encountered Dr. Hermann, who had come down to make another attempt on the Gracious Lady, and had thus found himself in the presence of a very different person.  An opening had offered itself in America, and he had come to try to obtain his wife’s fortune to take them out.  The opportunity of making stringent terms had seemed to Bobus so excellent that he civilly invited Demetrius to dine and sleep, and sent off a note to beg his uncle to come and assist in a family compact.  Colonel Brownlow, having happily resisted his impulse to burn the letter unread as an impertinent proposal for his daughter, found that it contained so sensible a scheme that he immediately conceived a higher opinion of his namesake than he had ever had before.