“I am very glad that I was spared anything so horrible.”

“And the man’s face as he passed me going to the leap!  It will haunt me to my dying day!” Then she shivered, and gurgled in her throat, and turning suddenly round, hid her face on the elbow of the couch.

“I’ve been afraid all the afternoon that she would be ill,” whispered Lady Augustus to Miss Penge.  “She is so susceptible!”

When Lord Rufford came into the room Arabella at once got up and accosted him with a whisper.  Either he took her or she took him into a distant part of the room where they conversed apart for five minutes.  And he, as he told her how things were going and what was being done, bent over her and whispered also.  “What good would it do, you know?” she said with affected intimacy as he spoke of his difficulty about the ball.  “One would do anything if one could be of service,—­but that would do nothing.”  She felt completely that her presence at the accident had given her a right to have peculiar conversations and to be consulted about everything.  Of course she was very sorry for Major Caneback.  But as it had been ordained that Major Caneback was to have his head split in two by a kick from a horse, and that Lord Rufford was to be there to see it, how great had been the blessing which had brought her to the spot at the same time!

Everybody there saw the intimacy and most of them understood the way in which it was being used.  “That girl is very clever, Rufford,” his sister whispered to him before dinner.  “She is very much excited rather than clever just at present,” he answered;—­ upon which Lady Penwether shook her head.  Miss Penge whispered to Miss Godolphin that Miss Trefoil was making the most of it; and Mr. Morton, who had come into the room while the conversation apart was going on, had certainly been of the same opinion.

She had seated herself in an arm-chair away from the others after that conversation was over, and as she sat there Morton came up to her.  He had been so little intimate with the members of the party assembled and had found himself so much alone, that he had only lately heard the story about Major Caneback, and had now only heard it imperfectly.  But he did see that an absolute intimacy had been effected where two days before there had only been a slight acquaintance; and he believed that this sudden rush had been in some way due to the accident of which he had been told.  “You know what has happened?” he said.

“Oh, Mr. Morton; do not talk to me about it.”

“Were you not speaking of it to Lord Rufford?”

“Of course I was.  We were together.”

“Did you see it?” Then she shuddered, put her handkerchief up to her eyes, and turned her face away.  “And yet the ball is to go on?” he asked.

“Pray, pray, do not dwell on it,—­unless you wish to force me back to my room.  When I left it I felt that I was attempting to do too much.”  This might have been all very well had she not been so manifestly able to talk to Lord Rufford on the same subject.  If there is any young man to whom a girl should be able to speak when she is in a state of violent emotion, it is the young man to whom she is engaged.  So at least thought Mr. John Morton.