"Such things are not easily forgotten,"
said Maud, shaking her head. "Your son"
must think very lightly of me, to have
treated me as he did; and if I stay here,
will he not think still worse of me, for not
seeming to resent his conduct? I am sorry
to leave you, Mrs. Cartaret. I am homeless,
and you have been very kind to me.
But no girl who respects herself ought
willingly to remain in a house where the
master——"

"He is not the master here. Mon Dieu!
Mary Hind, do you not see that he directs
nothing, looks to nothing here? I wish he
would. I would give it all up to him, if he
would marry and live here. But no, he will
not — and he is not master. He spends here
—what? a few weeks, tout au plus, in the
course of the year. When he goes, next week,
I shall see him no more till who knows
when! Come, now, you will not leave me
on his account? Soyez gentille, ma petite,"
she added with a sort of little supplicating
whine, to which she resorted in great
emergencies, "and say that you will not leave
me. Tenez! I shall give you five pounds
a year more, there! That shall decide
you, come!"

Maud could not help smiling, in spite of
her serious ground for annoyance, as she
told Mrs. Cartaret that an increase of
wages could in no way affect her decision.
She consented, however, to stay — at all
events for the present; she would not
inconvenience Mrs. Cartaret by a precipitate
departure, she said: only it should be
understood that this was not a definite, but
a temporary arrangement, subject to
circumstances, which meant, of course,
subject to Mr. Lowndes's good behaviour.

That young gentleman, listening in the
next room to all that passed, was in high
spirits at the result of this interview. He
felt as all men do who have just escaped
paying the full penalty of their own folly,
a sense of inexpressible, almost unhoped-
for relief. For the fact was, that only now,
when he was so near losing her for ever,
did he awake to a full consciousness of his
real feeling for the girl. It was not to be
accounted for, or argued about; but he
who had never so much as singed his wings
at any of the gilded tapers round which he
had fluttered, had flown into the heart of
the flame of this domestic rushlight, and
found himself lying there at its feet, burnt,
suffering, incapable of flying away! It
would have been humiliating, only that he
had passed — or skipped over, as it were—
that phase of feeling, and had reached the
one where we try to justify to ourselves
some extravagant act towards which passion
impels us, and in judging which we should
be so inexorable, if the delinquent were our
dearest friend. He could no longer conceal
from himself that he was madly in love:
the idea of Maud's leaving the house, and
leaving it in just wrath with him, had
given him some hours of the only poignant
suffering he had ever known. In his wild,
insane folly he had treated with disrespect
a girl whom he knew, whom he had known
all the time, ought to be as secure from
insult at his hands as the highest lady in
the land. Had he alienated her for ever?
The question, in some form or other, was
for ever present to him. Yet, where did it
lead? To one of two ends. It was in vain
to shut his eyes; there was no escape from
one of two ends! And one of these, the one
which no doubt he had more or less had in
view all along, seemed now more unattainable,
more hopeless than ever.

How Mrs. Cartaret faced Rouse, and
broke to that turbulent chief subject the fact
that, in spite of everything, the new
favourite was not to be discharged, this
narrative need not recount; for more important
events, and having an immediate
bearing on the matter in hand, now
followed quickly. Another interview,
however, on that same day, must be detailed,
in order fully to understand the position of
the chief actors on this circumscribed stage
towards each other.

Maud had a bad headache; she looked
so ill in the afternoon that Mrs. Cartaret,
who was not generally very observant of
aspects, made her leave off reading, and
insisted upon her going out into the park.
"You shall remain out, at the least, two
hours; do you hear? My beloved Madame
Royale used to say there was nothing like
fresh air for a migraine. There, go along
with you, petite;" and, nothing loth, Maud
obeyed the mandate. She, who was so
accustomed to her long walks and rides,
felt the confinement of her new life more
than she chose to acknowledge to herself.
Women of resolute will are often slow to
acknowledge facts which interfere with
what they have arranged is to be the course
of events. Maud was of this number.

She chose the quietest path, one which
led to a distant shrubbery, where no one
ever walked. She had not been there ten
minutes before she was joined by Lowndes
Cartaret, who chose a circuitous route to
the spot where he watched her directing
her steps. It was no use trying to avoid