than another.” She laid this dangerous saying up in her mind with much glee, laughing to herself under her breath: “If you cannot get what you want, you must take what you can get.” How astounded he would be if it should ever be necessary to put him in mind of these dogmas--which were so true! Her father’s arguments, indeed, which were so well meant, did not suit the case of Constance. She had been in a better state of mind when she had felt herself to awake, as it were, on the edge of this desert, into which, in her impatience, she had flung herself, and saw that there was no escape for her, that she had been taken at her word, that she was to be permitted to work out her own will, and that no one would forcibly interfere to restore all her delights, to smooth the way for her to return. She had expected this, if not consciously, yet with a strong unexpressed conviction. But when she had seen Markham’s face disappear, and realised that he was gone, actually gone, and had left her to exist as she could in the wilderness to which she had flown, her young perverse soul had been swept as by a tempest. After a while, when she had gone through that little interview with her father, when she had executed her little revolution, and had seated herself in the quiet of the early night to think again over the whole matter, the pang returned, as every pang does. It was not yet ten o’clock, the hour at which she might have been setting out to a succession of entertainments under her mother’s wing; but she had nothing better to amuse her than to alter the arrangement of a few old chairs, to draw aside a faded curtain, and then to betake herself to bed, though it was too early to sleep. There were sounds of voices still audible without--people singing, gossiping, enjoying, on the stone benches on the Punto, just those same delights of society which happy people on the verge of a new season were beginning to enjoy. But Constance did not feel much sympathy with the villagers, who were foreigners, whom she felt to be annoying and intrusive, making a noise under her windows, when, as it so happened, she had nothing to do but to go to sleep. When she looked out from the window and saw the pale sky spreading clear over the sea, she could think of nothing but Frances rushing along through the night, with Markham taking such care of her, hastening to London, to all that was worth living for. No doubt that little thing was still crying in her corner, in her folly and ignorance regretting her village. Oh, if they could but have changed places! To think of sitting opposite to Markham, with the soft night air blowing in her face, devouring the way, seeing the little towns flash past, the morning dawn upon France, the long levels of the flat country sweep along, then Paris, London, at last! She shut the _persiani_ almost violently with a hand that trembled, and looked round the four walls which shut her in, with again an impulse almost of despair. She felt