Lord and Lady Haredale declared that unless Lucian, and Mrs Leigh also, withdrew their suspicions at once and wholly, and apologised for having entertained them, they would not allow their daughter to continue her engagement. Amethyst herself, angered and hurt, ashamed and confounded, too inexperienced to follow the dictates of the love that ought to have been stronger than all else, wounded at Lucian's doubts, and believing that the duty of hiding her mother's disgrace came before the duty of being open with her lover, was passive and silent. Lucian, with intervals of passionate desire to give up everything rather than lose her, recurred again and again to his instinctive utterance, "She ought to tell _me_" well knowing that it was out of his power to endure the doubt that had fallen on her. So he fought back the impulse to trust her, as a temptation, and she fought back the longing to tell him, as a sin; and so, forced on by the determination of their elders, the fatal deed was completed. The packets of letters and presents were exchanged, the notes and telegrams to stop the wedding preparations were already being despatched, Amethyst had locked herself into her own room, feeling as if she could never show her face again, and Lucian, in his, was roughly throwing his things into a portmanteau, determining that months should elapse before he again saw Ashfield, if indeed he ever returned there at all, when Mr Riddell, unluckily absent from home all day on clerical business, drove himself back in the cool of the evening in his little pony-trap, his mind recurring to his son's distress of mind on the night before. Presently he saw Sylvester coming along the road to meet him. "Oh, father," said the young man, as the pony pulled up, "this has been a miserable day." "What is it? Get in, and tell me about it," said the Rector. Sylvester nerved himself to tell the story clearly. "We did see her. I cannot think otherwise," he concluded. "But I would stake my soul on it, that there is some way out of the mystery." "My dear boy, it doesn't do to begin married life with a mystery. Wait, and it may be solved yet." "Her life will be ruined!" "No, I hope not; we must try to show her kindness, to help her. But, if all had gone smooth, and she had married Lucian, who can tell how it would have been? He is a good fellow; but she--" "She is more than good," said Sylvester, under his breath, "but--" then suddenly he flung up his head, and said passionately, "_I_ would have run the risk." "I think," said Mr Riddell, after a moment's pause, "that I should try to look on this engagement as only delayed. If the attachment between them is of a sterling kind, it will survive much." "I expect Lucian will set himself to get over it," said Sylvester. "He'll think it a duty." He was pale, and had an agitated look, and his father glanced round at him for a moment.