“I did not mean to be, I assure you. I only envy him his luck.” And Aubrey stalked off over the old tombstones and began digging out bits of moss from a wall with the end of his cane, too angry to trust himself to say any more. “Good-bye, Mr. Cooke; I am going home!” sung out Annie; and, before he had made up his mind whether his dignity would allow him to follow her, she had left the churchyard and disappeared from his sight behind the wall. That decided him, and in a few strides he was out of the gate and crying humbly from behind her. “Miss Langton, aren’t you coming to have another of those tarts you liked so much, as we arranged?” “Not if you are going to stalk off to the other side of the road if I happen to say something you don’t agree with.” “I beg your pardon. I am in a bad temper this morning, I suppose. I will agree with everything you say. I think Colonel Richardson is the nicest man I know.” “Then there we sha’n’t agree,” said Annie, smiling; “for, although I think his manner is good, I don’t much care about him.” “Don’t you?” interrogated Aubrey, delightedly! “I’m so glad! Do you know, I didn’t think he was the kind of man you would like much. Then you said what you did only to tease me?” “Did I?” said Annie, surprised that he should make such a fuss about a trifle. “I don’t think I did. I say, shall we stay here next week, as we are not going to York?” “No; we are going out of our route a little. The governor has got us a week at Beckham.” “Beckham!” cried Annie, while all the color fled from her face. “Yes. Why, what is the matter?” “Nothing,” said she, in her usual voice, but the color did not come back to her cheeks. Now, Aubrey knew very well that “nothing” would not affect Miss Langton as that mere mention of a place had done; but he saw, too, that she did not intend to give him a truer answer. It was not difficult to come to the conclusion that there were unpleasant associations connected in her mind with the place to which they were going; and, after long deliberation, he made up his mind definitely that Beckham should be the place where he would at last screw up his courage to the point of asking her to be his wife. “If she likes me--and I think--I almost think she does”--he reflected that night--“why, my proposal will be the very best thing to drive any unhappy recollections of the place out of her head. If she won’t have me--well, there is a river at Beckham!” With which dark suggestion Aubrey blew out his candle and went to sleep. CHAPTER XIV. Annie felt half inclined at first to request the manager, on the plea of illness, to let his niece, who was her “understudy,” play her parts for the week the company were to spend at Beckham, and take her chance of his allowing her to rejoin them at the next town they visited. The incompetent little niece was eager, as Annie knew, for such a chance, and there would probably be little difficulty as far as that part of the matter was concerned.