Miss Cantanker, and to have remained behind
when that lady took her departure. Such
influences do descend upon us at times, and it is
to little purpose that we fight against their
force. Sometimes they mean something,
sometimes they mean nothing; but they are
sufficiently distressing while they last. When that
interruption came which has been already
mentioned, our little party of three were enjoying
themselves quietly enough. They had partaken
together of that meal whose praises have been
sung already in more eloquent terms than any to
which I can give utterance, and as they sat round
the tea-table, it seemed as if they had respectively
reached one of those periods in life's journey
when there is a pause, when we draw the boat out
of the current and moor it to the bank, and get
out and rest; then the messenger came, and they
must begin living again; they must get back to
their places on the thwarts, and row for dear life.

I have dwelt a little on the quietness of that
evening, and have, if I may venture to say so,
almost enjoyed it myself, partly, perhaps,
because I know that for many a day to come my
characters would enjoy no more such calm
moments, or such peaceful, friendly intercourse.

There is trouble at hand, and I have sad and
harrowing things to tell of, and from the narration
of which I feel inclined to shrink. So I linger
over the memory of that pleasant evening, and
hesitate to go on to other and more painful scenes.

But men, and women too, require other than
pleasant scenes and happy experiences if they
are to attain to the glories of heroism. The
noblest steel has no easy time of it as it
progresses towards perfection. It is beaten with
bitter blows. It is thrust into the furnace to be
heated, and then into the ice-brook to be chilled;
and some metal there is that cannot bear the test,
and some that comes out of it—impregnable.

There are different grades in life, and each
involves a different preparation for its right
development. There is the common iron with which
we scrape the mud from off our feet, and there is
the quivering steel which makes a Toledo blade;
so there is the high-bred race-horse, and the nag
on which the farmer's wife can jog to market;
and in all these cases, and many more that might
be cited, it will still be found that, in proportion
to the magnificence of the result, will be the
fierce severity of the preparation.

"She has been more cruel, and more strange
than ever," said poor Gabrielle, coming back
after an interval into the room where she had
left her husband and his friend.

"Why, you have been crying, Gabrielle?"
said Penmore.

"Yes; I could not help it. I have been so
angry with myself, for I quite lost my temper
for a time, and that horrid woman, the servant,
was there and seemed so pleased—What do
you think she sent for me about?" asked Gabrielle,
interrupting herself.

She paused for an answer, but neither Gilbert
nor Lethwaite seemed disposed to hazard a
guess, so she went on:

"She sent for me because she felt very poorly,
she said, and very sleepy, and I must say she
looked both. But there was no chance of her
going to sleep, she added, while we made so
much noise down stairs in the room underneath."

"Well," exclaimed Penmore and his friend,
simultaneously.

"Yes," Mrs. Penmore went on. "She said
that she had never heard such a noise in her life.
And then she asked who we had got here, and
was it not that 'horrid' Mr. Lethwaite."

"She's sincere, at any rate," remarked the
gentleman thus flatteringly alluded to.

"And then," continued Gabrielle, "she
wanted to know if you were going, or whether
you meant to stop here all night?"

Lethwaite got up immediately and made for
his hat.

"No, no, no," cried Gilbert, forcing him
back into his chair. "Nothing of the sort."

"Well, it was when she said that," Gabrielle
went on, "that I lost my temper a little. I told
her that it was bad taste and wrong to talk like
that; that people were more sensitive about their
friends than about themselves, and a great deal
more, and I went out of the room, still quite
angry; and that horrid Cantanker said, 'Upon
my word!' as I went away, and then I could not
help crying, because I was so vexed with myself."

"I think you were perfectly right to be a
little indignant," said Lethwaite, "and I should
have thought less highly of you if you had not
fired up a little in defence of a friend."

"And she said worse than all that," said
Gabrielle to her husband when their friend was
gone. "She actually said that she believed I
was in love with Mr. Lethwaite, and that that
was why I defended him. Gilbert, my darling,
do you wonder that I was angry?"

"This cannot go on," replied her husband, as
if talking to himself.

CHAPTER XV. A CRISIS.

PENMORE was right. It was not possible that
such a state of things should go on. But how
was it to be put a stop to? that was the
difficulty. Were they to intimate to his cousin,
without beating about the bush, that the present
state of things was unsatisfactory, and that
it would be better that it should come to an
end? They could hardly do that. What were
they to do?

Gilbert perplexed himself with such questions
all through the night. Questions to which no
answer came kept him awake and troubled him.
Alas, he little knew what an answer to them all
might have been given if he could but have
read the short future contained in the next
twenty-four hours. What we call Fate moves
at such an unequal pace. For weeks and
months and years things go on with a wonderful
monotony, and the condition of our affairs
undergoes no change whatever. And then a day
comes, and in the space of a few hours all is
altered. Some one event takes place which
involves change in all the rest. One stone slips
in the fabric that has stood so long, and lo! in