style of coiffure, her chesnut hair being
taken off her forehead, and gathered up in
a huge plait at the back of her head.

"You recollect my first mention to you
of the intention of having that dreadful
ice-party, Mr. Joyce?" said Lady Caroline,
after the first speeches of acknowledgment.

"Perfectly, it was in this room, almost
where we are sitting now!"

"Don't you remember—I hope you don't,
and if you don't, it's silly in me to remind
you, though I can't help it—that I had
been quizzing you about the way in which
you remained devoted to your writing,
and assured you that we should only
attempt to tear you away from it, and to
get you to join us on one other occasion
before we went to town, and that was to
this skating affair. It would have been but
a poor look-out for one of the party, if you
hadn't been there."

"You're giving me much greater credit
than I deserve, Lady Caroline; and indeed
during all the past week I've felt that I've
been placed in a false position in the hero-
worship I've received. It certainly
happened that I got to the place before Mr.
Biscoe, and I was in quicker than he, but
that was because I was a little younger, and
had longer limbs. But what I've done
to be made so much of, I really don't
know!"

"You've saved my life, Mr. Joyce —and
won my eternal gratitude!" and again she
stretched out her hand.

"The last is ample reward for the
first, Lady Caroline! No other recognition
is necessary!" And he took her hand, but
he merely held it for an instant, and bowed
over it and let it go. Did not even press it,
never thought of attempting to raise it to
his lips. Lady Caroline withdrew it quietly
with a half-laugh. He was the coldest,
most insensate, impassible man in the world,
she thought; clever, and with a great amount
of odd indescribable fascination, but a
perfect stone.

He was not. He was a simple, single-
minded man, unaccustomed to the ways
of flirtation, and utterly uncomprehending
any of the mysteries of the craft. He had
felt naturally proud of the notice which
Lady Caroline had taken of him, had
written of it to Marian, attributing it, as
he honestly thought it was due, to Lady
Caroline's superior education and love of
books attracting her to him for
companionship. He was by no means an
observant man, as but few students are, but
he had noticed, as he thought, a certain
amount of freedom in manners generally at
Westhope, which was very different from
anything he had previously seen. He
ascribed it to the different grade of society,
and took but little notice of it. He must,
however, have been more than blind not to
have seen that in Lady Caroline's conduct
towards him at the time of the accident,
there was something more than this; that
in that whispered word "Walter," and
the tone in which it was whispered, there
was an unmistakable admission of a sentiment
which he had hitherto chosen to
ignore, and which he determined to ignore
still. Walter Joyce was but human, and it
would be absurd to deny that his vanity
was flattered. He had a sufficient feeling
for Lady Caroline, based on gratitude, and
nurtured by general liking, to experience a
certain compunction for her, placed as she
must inevitably find herself by his mode of
treatment of her, but regarding that mode
of treatment he had never an instant's
doubt. He had been brought up in far
too strict a school of honour ever to palter
with himself for a moment, much less
with any one else. His heart was in
Marian Ashurst's keeping, his liege love,
and in not one single pulsation should it
be false to her. All this he had thought
out before the interview with Lady
Caroline, and his conduct then was exactly as
he had prescribed to himself it should be.
He took no credit to himself for his coldness
and reserve, nor indeed did he deserve
any, for he felt as calmly and coldly as he
acted. There was but one person in the
world with power to make his heart leap, his
pulses fill, to rouse his energy with a look—
to cloud his hopes with a word. Why was
she silent then? She could not know how
critical the time might have been, she
should never know it, but he felt that he
wanted her advice, advice on the general
questions of his life, and he determined to
write to her in a way that should elicit it.

Thus he wrote:

                                      " Westhope, Friday.

"My dearest Marian, I am still without
any news of you, although this is the third
letter I have written since I received your
last. I know that you must have been
very much, and very specially, engaged. I
know, as you will have gathered from my
last hasty few lines, that poor Tom Creswell
is dead, and I feel that you must have
been called upon to your utmost to play the
part of comforter, and to bring your keen
sympathies and busy brains into active use
to restore something like a semblance of