"It is no fault at all, I presume," said Roger, "but an agreeable meeting, which I can only apologise for interrupting." "You need not speak so fine for me," said Lily, rousing herself. "I was but going to see old Bess in the cottage. I was not thinking upon gentlemen, neither him nor another--least of all upon him," she added in a low tone, with an accent of contempt in her voice. This tone made Featherstonhaugh unreasonably angry, and in an equally unreasonable way mollified Roger. She stood between them, two dark and clouded faces, her own somewhat anxious and frightened. But Lily was no coward. "I cannot hold you from quarrelling, if you will quarrel," she said, "but it shall not be about me. I'm wanting none of you; but I'll speak when I'm spoken to, whoever it is, and answer to no person for it, but my mother," said Lily, after a pause,--"the only one in the world that has a right to find fault with me. Good-day to you. I'm going on, as was my meaning, to see old Bess." And with this she swept away, simple Lily in her cotton gown, bearing the part and aspect of a princess to the two astonished young men. They stood as she left them staring at each other, mutually discomfited. Roger, who had confronted his rival in all the rigour of righteous wrath a minute before, feeling himself so ridiculously in the wrong that he did not know what to say. Featherstonhaugh took advantage of his sudden downfall. "I hope you see the mistake of a too hasty judgment?" he said. "Mistake!" cried Roger, roused. "Mistake about her, if you like, who shames us with her innocence; but none about you. Have a care, Featherstonhaugh! If you think I will stand by and see one woman duped, and another played with----" "You do me immense credit," said the other, with a pale smile. "I never knew I was such a Lothario." "By heaven I will teach you then," cried Roger, setting his teeth, "if you put yourself in my way."