This was disconcerting. Nan had not expected so speedy a concession, and she followed her mother from the room oppressed by the remembrance of that melancholy look, and consumed with curiosity as to its cause. Money anxiety it could not be, seeing that Mr Vanburgh's heir need never fear want; but a broken home, disappointed love, and faithless friendship held out wide avenues for speculation. Nan sat and pondered, listening meekly to her mother's reproofs, while inside the dining-room Mr Rendell could not resist putting a home question to his visitor. "You were amused by my little girl's enthusiasm! I saw her growing hot and eager, and had a strong suspicion that you were leading her on! She is a most fervent young person, and cannot understand being less than in deadly earnest over any question." "She is er--refreshingly young!" replied Gervase in his soft, drawling voice. He took no notice of the charge made against himself, but went on peeling his fruit with an air of pensive exhaustion, at which the two elder men exchanged glances of amusement. He looked at once so young, so healthy, and so prosperous, that this affectation of depression had somewhat of a ludicrous air to men who knew the world and had acquaintance with real and pressing anxieties. Ned Talbot looked across the table at the handsome youngster, and heaved a sigh to the memory of the good old days when he also was happy enough to invent troubles, and philosophise darkly concerning unknown woes. He had come south with a heart heavy with care, yet with an expectation of comfort which had taken away half the sting, but that hope had been doomed to disappointment, and on the morrow he must return to his work with an added fear in his heart. Could it be that he had been mistaken in Lilias? As a man eating a soft bloomy peach jars his teeth suddenly against its stone, so had Ned found himself confronted with a hardness in his _fiancee's_ nature which had brought with it a shock of disillusionment. Surely, surely, if a girl were ever to be sweet and sympathetic to the man whom she had promised to marry, it was when he was threatened by misfortune; but Lilias evidently refused to believe in his version of affairs, and cherished a grudging conviction that he was sacrificing her to romantic scruples. He had talked, and pleaded, and reasoned--it was like hitting one's self against a wall. She never swerved from her position, her voice never lost its tone of studied toleration; and now he sat, the poor fellow! listening dreamily to the conversation between the other two men, too weary and depressed to take any active share in it himself.