Nor, after all, was there much danger as yet Jack was struck, interested, touched, but the feelings kept themselves where they started, not having run on into any thrill of love. Whether if he had been free when he saw Beatrice matters might not have been different, one cannot say. Perhaps. But he, too, was loyal. To him his engagement was a fact, and his word a bond; and bonds and facts do exert an influence over an honourable man, let passion say what it will against them. That there was a certain peril cannot be denied, and it lay in the fact that he did not love Phillis. He felt a sort of attraction, a pitying tenderness, a conviction that to marry her was the best way of bringing a skein or two out of their tangle, but this was not love. And, meanwhile, the white villa set on the hillside, with its flowers, its sweets, its Italian charm; the girl with her beauty, her passionate nature, and yet her revolt against that very nature, interested him. Who was this man, this Oliver Trent, who had so suddenly appeared among them? A red-faced, hard-featured man, the cousin, as, they said, of Kitty. But it was not Kitty whom he had watched when they sat on the steps the evening before. It was not Kitty who had seemed the most disturbed at his coming. Jack said to himself that it was all nothing to him, still he could not help feeling curious, and of course common courtesy demanded that he should go that morning to the villa in order to inquire for the injured hand. After that morning he would not be so completely his own master. This, it will be seen, was the man's view of the matter, neither more nor less. His imagination had been touched, but his mind was clear enough to see things as they were, uncoloured by any strange and dream-like tints. For the girl's, it was different. Think at what a time of ferment he had suddenly touched her life. She had grown through a childhood, saddened by that dreariest sorrow which can befall a child--want of faith in those it should love--to a womanhood from which it seemed as if all the sweetest belongings of her age--care, watchfulness, guiding, were withdrawn. Its brightness was darkened by memories, burdened by pledges. No doubt her state of feeling was exaggerated, but through what strivings, seekings after light, yearnings for justice, had that poor bent shoot struggled upwards. The girl had an instinctive hatred of oppression, a longing to protect, to deliver; the sort of spirit which has made heroines before now, but also has often wrecked a woman's own peace. For those who have it sometimes give up what is not theirs to give, the happiness of others--or their own hearts, when they have passed from their keeping.