have a right to complain of her?  Hugh Stanbury had never spoken to her a word that would justify her in even supposing that he would consider himself to be ill-used.  All others of her friends would certainly rejoice, would applaud her, pat her on the back, cover her with caresses, and tell her that she had been born under a happy star.  And she did like the man.  Nay she thought she loved him.  She withdrew her hands from her brow, assured herself that her lot in life was cast, and with hurrying fingers attempted to smooth her hair and to arrange her ribbons before the glass.  She would go to the encounter boldly and accept him honestly.  It was her duty to do so.  What might she not do for brothers and sisters as the wife of Lord Peterborough of Monkhams?  She saw that that arrangement before the glass could be of no service, and she stepped quickly to the door.  If he did not like her as she was, he need not ask her.  Her mind was made up, and she would do it.  But as she went down the stairs to the room in which she knew that he was waiting for her, there came over her a cold feeling of self-accusation almost of disgrace.  ‘I do not care,’ she said.  ‘I know that I’m right.’  She opened the door quickly, that there might be no further doubt, and found that she was alone with him.

‘Miss Rowley,’ he said, ’I am afraid you will think that I am persecuting you.’

‘I have no right to think that,’ she answered.

’I’ll tell you why I have come.  My dear father, who has always been my best friend, is very ill.  He is at Naples, and I must go to him.  He is very old, you know over eighty; and will never live to come back to England.  From what I hear, I think it probable that I may remain with him till everything is over.’

‘I did not know that he was so old as that.’

’They say that he can hardly live above a month or two.  He will never see my wife if I can have a wife; but I should like to tell him, if it were possible that—­’

‘I understand you, Mr Glascock.’

’I told you that I should come to you again, and as I may possibly linger at Naples all the winter, I could not go without seeing you.  Miss Rowley, may I hope that you can love me?’

She did not answer him a word, but stood looking away from him with her hands clasped together.  Had he asked her whether she would be his wife, it is possible that the answer which she had prepared would have been spoken.  But he had put the question in another form.  Did she love him?  If she could only bring herself to say that she could love him, she might be lady of Monkhams before the next summer had come round.

‘Nora,’ he said, ‘do you think that you can love me?’

‘No,’ she said, and there was something almost of fierceness in the tone of her voice as she answered him.

‘And must that be your final answer to me?’