Lady Augustus was absolutely at a loss to understand what were the motives and what the ideas which induced her daughter to take the journey.  If the man were to die no good could come of it.  If he were to live then surely that love which had induced him to make so foolish a petition would suffice to ensure the marriage, if the marriage should then be thought desirable.  But, at the present moment, Arabella was still hot in pursuit of Lord Rufford; to whom this journey, as soon as it should be known to him, would give the easiest mode of escape!  How would it be possible that they two should get out at the Dillsborough Station and be taken to Bragton without all Rufford knowing it.  Of course there would be hymns sung in praise of Arabella’s love and constancy, but such hymns would be absolutely ruinous to her.  It was growing clear to Lady Augustus that her daughter was giving up the game and becoming frantic as she thought of her age, her failure, and her future.  If so it would be well that they should separate.

On the day fixed a close carriage awaited them at the Dillsborough Station.  They arrived both dressed in black and both veiled,—­and with but one maid between them, This arrangement had been made with some vague idea of escaping scrutiny rather than from economy.  They had never hitherto been known to go anywhere without one apiece.  There were no airs on the station now as on that former occasion,—­ no loud talking; not even a word spoken.  Lady Augustus was asking herself why,—­why she should have been put into so lamentable a position, and Arabella was endeavouring to think what she would say to the dying man.

She did think that he was dying.  It was not the purport of her present visit to strengthen her position by making certain of the man’s hand should he live.  When she said that she was not as yet quite so hard-hearted as her mother, she spoke the truth.  Something of regret, something of penitence had at times crept over her in reference to her conduct to this man.  He had been very unlike others on whom she had played her arts.  None of her lovers, or mock lovers, had been serious and stern and uncomfortable as he.  There had been no other who had ever attempted to earn his bread.  To her the butterflies of the world had been all in all, and the working bees had been a tribe apart with which she was no more called upon to mix than is my lady’s spaniel with the kennel hounds.  But the chance had come.  She had consented to exhibit her allurements before a man of business and the man of business had at once sat at her feet.  She had soon repented,—­as the reader has seen.  The alliance had been distasteful to her.  She had found that the man’s ways were in no wise like her ways,—­and she had found also that were she to become his wife, he certainly would not change.  She had looked about for a means of escape,—­but as she did so she had recognized the man’s truth.  No doubt he had been different from the others, less gay in his