“I too; but he will write, and I really can wait no longer,” Rosamund replied, in extreme apprehension lest a certain degree of pressure should overbear her repugnance to the doctor’s dinner-table. Miss Denham’s look was fixed on her; but, whatever it might mean, Rosamund’s endurance was at an end. She was invited to dine; she refused. She was exceedingly glad to find herself on the high-road again, with a prospect of reaching Steynham that night; for it was important that she should not have to confess a visit to Bevisham now when she had so little of favourable to tell Mr. Everard Romfrey of his chosen nephew. Whether she had acted quite wisely in not remaining to see Nevil, was an agitating question that had to be silenced by an appeal to her instincts of repulsion, and a further appeal for justification of them to her imaginary sisterhood of gossips. How could she sit and eat, how pass an evening in that house, in the society of that man? Her tuneful chorus cried, “How indeed.” Besides, it would have offended Mr. Romfrey to hear that she had done so. Still she could not refuse to remember Miss Denham’s marked intimations of there being a reason for Nevil’s friend to seize the chance of an immediate interview with him; and in her distress at the thought, Rosamund reluctantly, but as if compelled by necessity, ascribed the young lady’s conduct to a strong sense of personal interests. “Evidently _she_ has no desire he should run the risk of angering a rich uncle.” This shameful suspicion was unavoidable: there was no other opiate for Rosamund’s blame of herself after letting her instincts gain the ascendancy. It will be found a common case, that when we have yielded to our instincts, and then have to soothe conscience, we must slaughter somebody, for a sacrificial offering to our sense of comfort. CHAPTER XIII. A SUPERFINE CONSCIENCE