This, then, was the end. The shrine was not only deserted--it was destroyed: the idol was not only dethroned--it was broken, and shown to be nothing but stone. Don Juan was not true. Nay, worse--he never had been true. His vow of eternal fidelity was empty breath; his reiterated protestations of single and unalterable love were worth just nothing. He had only been amusing himself. He had known all the while, that in exchange for the solid gold of her young heart, he was offering her the veriest pinchbeck. Blanche had been half awake before, and she was wide awake now. Yet the awakening, for all that, was very bitter. Naturally enough, her first thought was that all men were of this stamp, and that there was no truth in any of them. Aunt Rachel was right:--they were a miserable, false, deceiving race, created for the delusion and suffering of woman: she would never believe another of them as long as she lived. There might be here and there an exception to the rule, such as her father or Mr Tremayne; she could not believe such evil of them: but that was the rule. And Blanche, being not quite seventeen, declared to herself that after this vast and varied experience of the world, she would never--not if she lived to be a hundred--_never_ trust man again. She slipped quietly down-stairs, and caught Sir Thomas just as he was leaving the house. "Father!" she whispered, sliding into his hand the little packet of Don Juan's hair, "maybe I ought to have given you this aforetime. Allgates now take it; it is nought to me any more--sith he is hot." Sir Thomas transferred the little parcel to his pocket. "'Give thee good night, my jewel! We shall all be fain to have thee home again to-morrow." Blanche returned the greeting, but glided away again, and was seen very little that night. But Mrs Tremayne guessed the state of the girl's mind more truly than Sir Thomas had done. The next day they went home. "Bless thee, my precious Blanche!" was Lady Enville's greeting. "And thee too, Clare. Good lack, how faded is yon camlet! 'Tis well ye were but at the parsonage, for it should have shamed thee any other whither." "Well, child!" said Aunt Rachel. "I trust thou hast come home to work like a decent lass, and not sit moaning with thine hands afore thee like a cushat dove. What man ever trod middle earth that was worth a moan?" "I will essay to give you content, Aunt Rachel," said Blanche quietly. "Clare, my good lass, I have lacked thee sorely. I scarce wis what to do without thee." Clare looked pleased. "Well, Aunt Rachel, I am come to work, and that with a will," she answered cheerily. "I am thankful to hear it. Now, if Heaven's will it be, all things shall go on as usual once again." But nothing was to go on as usual any more.