Hours told in such cases. The fire and earnestness with which he had spoken to the beautiful widow had evidently surprised and, he thought, touched her. If the demonstration had not been made in his own favour, but in that of another, no one would have more readily understood than Stewart Routh how much beauty of form and feature counts for in the interpretation of emotion, how little real meaning there may be in the beam of a dark bright eye, how little genuine emotion in the flush of a rose-tinted cheek. But it was his own case, and precisely because it was, Stewart Routh interpreted every sign which his captor had made according to his wishes rather than by the light of his experience. Indeed, he had little experience of a kind to avail him in the present instance; his experience had been of stronger, even more dangerous, types of womanhood than that which Mrs. Bembridge represented, or of the infinitely meaner and lower. As he mused and brooded over the vision which had flashed upon him, not merely as a possibility to be entertained, as a hope to be cherished, but as something certain and definite to be done, his spirits, his courage, his audacity rose, and the dark cloud of dread and foreboding fell from him. He had so long known himself for a villain, that there was not even a momentary recoil in his mind from the exceeding baseness of the proceeding which he contemplated. "I can count upon a fortnight," he said to himself while completing a careful toilet, "and by that time I shall either be away from all this with her, or I shall be obliged to put George Dallas in jeopardy. If I fail with _her_--but I won't think of failure; I cannot fail." He left a message with Harriet, to the effect that he should not dine at home that day (but without any explanation of his further movements), and went out. "I do not see the force of your reasons for objecting to my introducing you to my mother," said George Dallas to Harriet. Mrs. Carruthers had passed them in an open carriage during their walk, and George had urged Harriet to make his mother's acquaintance. "Don't you?" she replied, with a smile in which weariness and sadness mingled. "I think you would, if you thought over them a little. They include the necessity for avoiding anything like an unpleasant or distressing impression on her mind, and you know, George," she said, anticipating and silencing deprecation by a gesture, "if she remembers your mention of me at all, she can remember it only to be distressed by it; and the almost equally important consideration of not incurring your stepfather's anger in any way." "As for that, I assure you he is everything that is kind to me now," said George.