Mrs Portlock paused here to go and scold one of the maids for picking out all the big lumps of coal and leaving the small, but she came back into the kitchen to think about her niece. "He's a deal better than Luke Ross," she said to herself, "for Luke's only a tradesman after all. There's no mistake about it, he means our Sage; and where, I should like to know, would he find a better girl?" There was a pause here, during which Mrs Portlock indulged in a few retrospects concerning Rue, and the time when she was in such trouble about Frank. "But Cyril is a better disposed young man than his brother, I am sure," she said, half aloud. "He is his mother's favourite too. I wonder what Mrs Mallow will say!" Mrs Portlock said this aloud, and then stopped short, alarmed at her own words, for she called up the face of the calm, dignified Rector entering the place, looking at her reproachfully, and ready to blame her for her assumption in encouraging his son's visits. "Oh, my gracious!" she ejaculated, half in horror, for her imagination for the time began to run riot, and she saw that, even if Cyril Mallow was very fond of Sage, and even if Sage returned his love, matters would not run quite so smoothly as she had anticipated. "I'm sure she's as good as he," she exclaimed, by way of indignant protest to the accusations of her conscience; but, all the same, she was now brought face to face with the consequences of her tacit encouragement of Cyril Mallow's visits. "And I'm sure we're as well off as they are," she added, after a pause. But, all the same, her conscience would not be quieted, and Mrs Portlock was on the point of going up to her niece's room, when, with a fresh qualm of dread, though she hardly knew why, she saw her husband come striding up toward the house. Meanwhile Sage's breast was racked by conflicting emotions, chief amongst which was that suggested by a self-accusation from her wounded heart; and she knelt there, sobbing and praying for help, feeling that she was intensely wicked, and that the hopeless misery of her case was greater than she could bear. Her mind was in a chaos, and she shuddered as she clung to the coverlet, and dragged it over her drawn and excited face, as one moment it was the stern, reproachful figure of Luke Ross asking her if this was her faith--this the meaning of her tender, loving letters--this the reward of his chivalrous determination to give up everything to the one idea of making himself a worthy suitor with her relatives; the next it was Cyril, gazing at her with despairing eyes, which seemed to say that if she cast him off he should drift recklessly through the world, and come to some bad end; while, did she bless him with her love, he would become a worthy member of society, a happy man, and one of whom she could feel so proud.