"But are you going back to-night?" Caroline asked. In her white muslin gown she looked wraith-like, part of the mist which hovered like a white veil over the ground. "I think so. I have a sort of fever in my bones.... I want to be moving all the time." Then quite abruptly he turned, and put his hand on her shoulder. "There is something else I want to say to you." She trembled and drew back, and he at once removed his hand. "Yes?" "I am told that Sir Samuel Broxbourne has been coming here very often of late, coming apparently for the purpose of seeing you." "Who has told you this?" Caroline asked very coldly. "It has been told me by a friend, and from the very best of reasons." "I know Mrs. Brenton is everything that is kind and good," said the girl, in a hard and cold tone; "yet I fail to see why she should approach you on such a matter as this." "Do you?" said Haverford. "She does it because she knows that I have the right to know what is passing with you, the right to enter into all that is important in your life. You are in my charge, subject to my command for the next two years." Caroline laughed half bitterly and half weakly. "Oh, don't let us talk such nonsense!" she exclaimed, and she moved away, but he followed her. "It is not nonsense," he spoke irritably. "I have established myself as your guardian, and by my mother's will you are bequeathed to my care, therefore I have a right to put questions to you which might seem impertinent if asked by anybody else." "I think Mrs. Brenton makes a mistake," said Caroline, still walking on. "In what way?" "Sir Samuel is an old friend of the house, he has been in the habit of coming here freely, I understand; why, therefore, should it be supposed that he comes now only because of me?" "I don't know why, but I hope to God he does not come for that reason!" His voice grew harder. "You know what I think of this man; I have spoken to you freely about him, and, better than that, your own instinct, which has carried you to such rare judgments, must tell you that he is no fit associate for a girl. I was going to say for any decent woman." Caroline was silent for a long time. Suddenly she said-- "All women are unreasonable, you know; that is a tradition, and sometimes they see things in a light that is hidden to you men. I don't suppose Sir Samuel is a paragon of perfection, but, at the same time, I don't think he is half so bad as he has been painted. At least he is very harmless, and rather amusing." Rupert Haverford looked at her, and a great amazement which bordered on pain took possession of him. "You like him?" he said, going to the point in his peculiarly direct way. Caroline shrugged her shoulders. "I really think I do, but I am not sure; at any rate, I don't bother myself about it very much." Her tone was flippant. "How you _do_ love catechising!" she said. It might have been Camilla speaking.