said he, half-laughing as he began his tale, "that I thoroughly respect Miss Dormer."

"Why is she to be called Miss Dormer?"

"Because she has shown herself worthy of my respect."

"What is it that you mean, Jonathan?"

"She knew her own mind when she told me at first that she could not accept the offer which I did myself the honour of making her, and now she sticks to her purpose. I think that a young lady who will do that should be respected."

"She has refused you again?"

"Altogether."

"As how?"

"Well, I hardly know that I am prepared to explain the 'as how' even to you. I am about as thick-skinned a man in such matters as you may find anywhere, but I do not know that even I can bring myself to tell the 'as how.' The 'as how' was very clear in one respect. It was manifest that she knew her own mind, which is a knowledge not in the possession of all young ladies. She told me that she could not marry me."

"I do not believe it."

"Not that she told me so?"

"Not that she knew her own mind. She is a little simple fool, who with some vagary in her brain is throwing away utterly her own happiness, while she is vexing you."

"As to the vexation you are right."

"Cross-grained little idiot!"

"An idiot she certainly is not; and as to being cross-grained I have never found it. A human being with the grains running more directly all in the same way I have never come across."

"Do not talk to me, Jonathan, like that," she said. "When I call her cross-grained I mean that she is running counter to her own happiness."

"I cannot tell anything about that. I should have endeavoured, I think, to make her happy. She has certainly run counter to my happiness."

"And now?"

"What;--as to this very moment! I shall leave Stalham to-morrow."

"Why should you do that? Let her go if one must go."

"That is just what I want to prevent. Why should she lose her little pleasure?"

"You don't suppose that we can make the house happy to her now! Why should we care to do so when she will have driven you away?" He sat silent for a minute or two looking at the fire, with his hands on his two knees. "You must acknowledge, Jonathan," continued she, "that I have taken kindly to this Ayala of yours."

"I do acknowledge it."

"But it cannot be that she should be the same to us simply as a young lady, staying here as it were on her own behalf, as she was when we regarded her as your possible wife. Then every little trick and grace belonging to her endeared itself to us because we regarded her as one who was about to become one of ourselves. But what are her tricks and graces to us now?"

"They are all the world to me," said the Colonel.

"But you must wipe them out of your memory,--unless, indeed, you mean to ask her again."

"Ah!--that is it."

"You will ask her again?"

"I do not say so; but I do not wish to rob myself of the chance. It may be that I shall. Of course I should to-morrow if I thought there was a hope. To-morrow there would be none,--but I should like to know, that I could find her again in hands so friendly as yours, if at the end of a month I should think myself strong enough to encounter the risk of another refusal. Would Sir Harry allow her to remain here for another month?"

"He would say, probably, nothing about it."

"My plan is this," he continued; "let her remain here, say, for three weeks or a month. Do you continue all your kindness to her,--if not for her sake then for mine. Let her feel that she is made one of yourselves, as you say."

"That will be hard," said Lady Albury.

"It would not be hard if you thought that she was going to become so at last. Try it, for my sake. Say not a word to her about me,--though not shunning my name. Be to her as though I had told you nothing of this. Then when the period is over I will come again,--if I find that I can do so. If my love is still stronger than my sense of self-respect, I shall do so." All this Lady Albury promised to do, and then the interview between them was over.

"Colonel Stubbs is going to Aldershot to-morrow," said she to Ayala in the drawing-room after dinner. "He finds now that he cannot very well remain away." There was no hesitation in her voice as she said this, and no look in her eye which taught Ayala to suppose that she had heard anything of what had occurred in the wood.

"Is he indeed?" said Ayala, trying, but in vain, to be equally undemonstrative.

"It is a great trouble to us, but we are quite unable to prevent it,--unless you indeed can control him."

"I cannot control him," said Ayala, with that fixed look of resolution with which Lady Albury had already become familiar.

That evening before they went to bed the Colonel bade them all good-bye, as he intended to start early in the morning. "I never saw such a fellow as you are for sudden changes," said Sir Harry.

"What is the good of staying here for hunting when the ground and Tony's temper are both as hard as brick-bats. If I go now I can get another week further on in March if the rain should come." With this Sir Harry seemed to be satisfied; but Ayala felt sure that Tony's temper and the rain had had nothing to do with it.

"Good-bye, Miss Dormer," he said, with his pleasantest smile, and his pleasantest voice.

"Good-bye," she repeated. What would she not have given that her voice should be as pleasant as his, and her smile! But she failed so utterly that the little word was inaudible,--almost obliterated by the choking of a sob. How bitterly severe had that word, Miss Dormer, sounded from his mouth! Could he not have called her Ayala for the last time,--even though all the world should have heard it? She was wide awake in the morning and heard the wheels of his cart as he was driven off. As the sound died away upon her ear she felt that he was gone from her for ever. How had it been that she had said, "I cannot," so often, when all her heart was set upon "I can?"

And now it remained to her to take herself away from Stalham as fast as she might. She understood perfectly all those ideas which Lady Albury had expressed to her well-loved friend. She was nothing to anybody at Stalham, simply a young lady staying in the house;--as might be some young lady connected with them by blood, or some young lady whose father and mother had been their friends. She had been brought there to Stalham, now this second time, in order that Jonathan Stubbs might take her as his wife. Driven by some madness she had refused her destiny, and now n.o.body would want her at Stalham any longer. She had better begin to pack up at once,--and go. The coldness of the people, now that she had refused to do as she had been asked, would be unbearable to her. And yet she must not let it appear that Stalham was no longer dear to her merely because Colonel Stubbs had left it. She would let a day go by, and then say with all the ease she could muster that she would take her departure on the next. After that her life before her would be a blank. She had known up to this,--so at least she told herself,--that Jonathan Stubbs would afford her at any rate another chance. Now there could be no other chance.

The first blank day pa.s.sed away, and it seemed to her almost as though she had no right to speak to any one. She was sure that Lady Rufford knew what had occurred, because nothing more was said as to the proposed visit. Mrs. Colonel Stubbs would have been welcome anywhere, but who was Ayala Dormer? Even though Lady Albury bade her come out in the carriage, it seemed to her to be done as a final effort of kindness. Of course they would be anxious to be rid of her.

That evening the buxom woman did not come to help her dress herself.

It was an accident. The buxom woman was wanted here and there till it was too late, and Ayala had left her room. Ayala, in truth, required no a.s.sistance in dressing. When the first agonizing moment of the new frock had been pa.s.sed over, she would sooner have arrayed herself without a.s.sistance. But now it seemed as though the buxom woman was running away, because she, Ayala, was thought to be no longer worthy of her services.

On the next morning she began her little speech to Lady Albury.

"Going away to-morrow?" said Lady Albury.

"Or perhaps the next day," suggested Ayala.

"My dear, it has been arranged that you should stay here for another three weeks."

"No."

"I say it was arranged. Everybody understood it. I am sure your aunt understood it. Because one person goes, everybody else isn't to follow so as to break up a party. Honour among thieves!"

"Thieves!"