"Miss Grey?" he said in hesitating and questioning tone, as that of one who is not quite clear about the ident.i.ty of the person he is addressing; but Mr. Sheppard was only giving form unconsciously to the doubt in his own mind, Are you still Miss Grey?

The words and their tone were rather fortunate for Minola. They amused her and seemed ridiculous, although she did not guess at Mr. Sheppard's real meaning, and they enabled her to get back at once to her easy contempt for him.

"You must have forgotten my appearance very soon, Mr. Sheppard," she said in a tone which carried the contempt so lightly and easily that he probably did not perceive it, "or I must have changed very much, if you are not quite certain whether I am Miss Grey. You have not changed at all. I should have known you anywhere."

"It is not that," Mr. Sheppard said with a little renewal of cheerfulness. "I should have known you anywhere, Miss Grey. You have not changed, except indeed that you have, if that were possible, improved.

Indeed, I would venture to say that you have decidedly improved."

"Thank you: you are very kind."

"It would be less surprising, if you, Miss Grey, had had some difficulty in recognizing me. Fortune, perhaps, has withdrawn some of her blessings from others only to pour them more lavishly on you."

"I feel very well, thank you; but I hope fortune has not been robbing any Peter to pay Paul in my case. You, at least, don't seem to have been cheated out of any of your good health, Mr. Sheppard."

While he made his little formal speeches Mr. Sheppard continued to glance sidelong at Victor Heron. Mr. Heron now left his place at the chimney-piece and came forward to take his leave.

"Must you go?" Minola asked, with as easy a manner as she could a.s.sume.

She dreaded a _tete-a-tete_ with Sheppard, and she also dreaded to let it be seen that she dreaded it. If Mary Blanchet would only come!

An expedient occurred to her for putting off the dreaded conversation yet a moment, and giving Mary Blanchet another chance.

"I should like my friends to know each other," Minola said, with a gayety of manner which was hardly in keeping with her natural ways.

"People are not introduced to each other now, I believe, when they meet by chance in London, but we are none of us Londoners. Mr. Sheppard comes from Keeton, Mr. Heron, and is one of the oldest friends of my family."

Mr. Heron held out his hand with eyes of beaming friendliness.

"Mr. Heron?" Sheppard asked slowly. "Mr. Victor Heron?"

"Victor Heron, indeed!"

"Mr. Victor Heron, formerly of the St. Xavier's Settlements?"

Heron only nodded this time, finding Mr. Sheppard's manner not agreeable. Minola wondered what her townsman was thinking of, and how he came to know Heron's name and history.

"Then my name must surely be known to you, Mr. Heron. The name of Augustus Sheppard, of Duke's-Keeton?"

"No, sir," Heron replied. "I am sorry to say that I don't remember to have heard the name before."

"Indeed," Mr. Sheppard said with a formal smile, intended to be incredulous and yet not to seem too plainly so. "Yet we are rivals, Mr.

Heron."

Minola started and colored.

"At least we are to be," Mr. Sheppard went on--"if rumor in Duke's-Keeton speaks the truth. I am not wrong in a.s.suming that I have the honor of addressing the future Radical--I mean Liberal--candidate for that borough?"

"Oh, that's it," Heron said carelessly. "Yes, yes: I didn't know that rumor had yet troubled herself about the matter so much as to speak of it truly or falsely. But of course, since you have heard it, Mr.

Sheppard, it's no secret. I have some ideas that way, Miss Grey. I intend to try whether I can impress your townspeople. This gentleman, I suppose, is on the other side."

"I am the other side," Mr. Sheppard said gravely. "I am to be the Conservative candidate--I was accepted by the party as the Conservative candidate, no matter who the Radical may be."

"Well, Mr. Sheppard, we shall not be the less good friends I hope,"

Heron said cheerily. "I can't be expected to wish that the best man may win, for that would be to wish failure for myself; but I wish the better cause may win, and in that you will join me. Good morning, Miss Grey!"

The room seemed to grow very chilly to Minola when his bright smile and sweet courteous tones were withdrawn and she was left with her old lover.

There was not much in Sheppard's appearance to win her back to any interest in him. He did not compare advantageously with Victor Heron.

When Heron left the room, the light seemed to have gone out; Heron was so fresh, so free, so sweet, and yet so strong, full of youth, and spirit, and manhood--a natural gentleman without the insipidity of the manners of society. Poor Augustus Sheppard was formal, constrained, and prosaic; he had not even the dignity of austerity. He was not self-sufficing: he was only self-sufficient. As he stood there he was awkward, and almost cowed. He seemed as if he were afraid of the girl, and Minola was woman enough to be angry with him because he seemed afraid of her. He was handsome, but in that commonplace sort of way which in a woman's eye is often worse than being ugly. Minola felt almost pitiless toward him, although the girl's whole nature was usually full of pity, for, as has already been said, she did not believe in his affection, and thought him a thorough sham. He stood awkwardly there, and she would not relieve him from his embarra.s.sment by saying a word.

"Well, Miss Grey," he began at last, "I suppose you hardly expected to see me."

"I did not know you were in town, Mr. Sheppard."

"I fear I am not very welcome," he said, with an uncomfortable smile; "but your mother particularly wished me to see you."

"My mother, Mr. Sheppard?" Minola grew red with pain and anger.

"I mean your stepmother, of course--the wife of your father."

"Once the wife of my father; now the wife of somebody else."

"Well, well, at all events the person who might be naturally supposed to have the best claim to some authority--or influence--influence let us say--over you."

"Has Mrs. Saulsbury sent you to say that she thinks she ought to have some influence over me?"

"Oh, no," he answered with that gentle deprecation of anger which is usually such fuel to anger's fire. "Mrs. Saulsbury has given up any idea of the kind long since--quite long since, I a.s.sure you. I think, if you will permit me to say it, that you were always a little unjust in your judgment of Mrs. Saulsbury. She is a true-hearted and excellent woman."

Minola said nothing. Perhaps she felt that she never had been quite in a position to do impartial justice to the excellence and the true-heartedness of Mrs. Saulsbury.

"But," Mr. Sheppard resumed, with a gentle motion of his hands, as if he would wave away now all superfluous and hopeless controversy, "that was not what I came to say."

Minola bowed slightly to signify that she was glad to know he was coming to the point at last.

"Mrs. Saulsbury is in very weak health, Miss Grey; something wrong with the lungs, I fear."

Minola was not much impressed at first. It was one of Mrs. Saulsbury's ways to cry "wolf" very often, as regarded the condition of her lungs, and up to the time of Minola's leaving, people had not been in serious expectation of the wolf's really putting his head in at the door.

Mr. Sheppard saw in Minola's face what she did not say.

"It is something really serious," he said. "Mr. Saulsbury knows it and every one. You have not been in correspondence with them for some time, Miss Grey."

"No," said Miss Grey. "I wrote, and n.o.body answered my letter."

"I am afraid it was regarded as--as----"

"Undutiful perhaps?"

"Well--unfriendly. But Mrs. Saulsbury now fears--or rather knows, for she is too good a woman to fear--that the end is nigh, and she wishes to be in fullest reconciliation with every one."

"Oh, has she sent for me?" Minola said, with something like a cry, all her coldness and formality vanishing with her contempt. "I'll go, Mr.