"You must steal another holiday before long," said her aunt to her as she was putting on her bonnet on the morning of her return to Stammars. "Matthew has brightened up wonderfully while you have been here, and I can't tell you how thankful I am for it." Matthew himself kissed her as he handed her into the fly that was to take her back. He had not kissed her since that never-to-be-forgotten day at Redcar, now long years ago. How strangely her heart thrilled to the touch of his lips! "Oh! that I could be with him altogether, never to leave him more!" she murmured. She lay back in the fly and cried all the way to Stammars; but already in that crooked brain of hers the embryo of a strange, dark scheme was beginning to take shape and consistency, although as yet she herself was hardly aware of its existence. Gerald, too, had his holiday at Easter. Not that he wanted it, or even asked for it. To know that he was under the same roof with Eleanor, even though his chances of seeing her might have been few and far between, would have been holiday enough for him. But Sir Thomas's offer was made in such a way that he could not refuse to accept it. He had no suspicion that the prime mover in the affair was Lady Dudgeon, who thought that, by isolating Eleanor as much as possible, she was materially increasing Captain Dayrell's chances of success. The demon of Jealousy was tugging at Gerald's heart-strings as he left Stammars for London, and all by reason of this same Captain Dayrell. He knew perfectly well that that gentleman, and he alone, had been specially invited to Stammars. He had met the captain once or twice at luncheon, and had seen enough of him to know that he might prove a most formidable rival. Before leaving Stammars he would fain have seen Eleanor, would fain have given her some hint more pointed than any he had yet given as to the state of his feelings, and have tried to win from her some sort of promise in return. But, either through accident or design, he found himself unable to see her even for five minutes; and he was compelled to go away without one word of farewell, but with the bitter knowledge--and bitter indeed it was to him--that his rival was expected to reach Stammars that very day in time for dinner. "What may not such a man accomplish in ten days!" muttered poor Gerald to himself, as he was being borne Londonwards in the train. "On the one hand, a good-looking, polished man of the world--a roué, doubtless, but how is Eleanor to know that?--full of bright talk and ready wit, and with an adaptability about him that makes him seem at home anywhere; on the other hand, an ardent, impressionable girl, bred in the country, lacking in knowledge of the world and its ways, with a sort of high-flown sentiment about her which Dayrell would know at once how to twist to his own advantage. In an encounter such as this, which of the two is likely to come off victor?"