‘I think Sir Vernon has had so much reason to be proud of his daughter this evening that he would readily have forgiven her iniquity in fainting,’ retorted Edgar, his blood at boiling-point from honest indignation. Daphne, wrapped in a long white cashmere cloak lined with white fur, looked very pale and ghostlike as she went slowly through the rooms on Edgar’s arm, attacked on her way by the reproaches of the partners with whom she was breaking faith by this untimely departure. ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ she said, with a faint touch of her natural gaiety, ‘but I’ll pay my debts this time two years. The engagements can stand over.’ When the bi-annual Hunt Ball comes round at Stratford-on-Avon there are some, perhaps, who will remember her promise, and the pale, pathetic face, and white-robed figure. Five minutes later the three ladies were seated in their carriage, Mrs. Ferrers still grumbling, while Edgar lingered at the door adjusting Daphne’s wraps. Just as he was going to shut the door, having no excuse for further delay, Daphne took his hand and clasped it with friendly warmth. ‘How good you are!’ she said softly, looking up at him with eyes that to his mind seemed lovelier than all the lights of the firmament, infinitely glorious on this frosty night in the steel-blue sky. ‘How good you are! how staunch and true!’ It was only well-merited praise, but it moved him so deeply that he had no power to answer, even by the smallest word. He could only grasp the slender little hand fervently in his own, and then shut the carriage-door with a bang, as if to drown the tumult of his own heart. ‘Home, coachman,’ he called, in a choking voice; an entirely superfluous mandate, neither coachman, nor footman, nor horses, having the least idea of going anywhere else. CHAPTER XXI. ‘FOR WELE OR WO, FOR CAROLE, OR FOR DAUNCE.’