“She has rejected me!” he whispered to Evan. “Talk of the ingratitude of women! Ten minutes ago I met her. She perked her eyebrows at me!—tried to run away. ‘Miss Wheedle’: I said. ‘If you please, I’d rather not,’ says she. To cut it short, the sacrifice I made to her was the cause. It’s all over the house. She gave the most excruciating hint. Those low-born females are so horribly indelicate. I stood confounded.” Commending his new humour, Evan persuaded him to breakfast immediately, and hunger being one of Jack’s solitary incitements to a sensible course of conduct, the disconsolate gentleman followed its dictates. “Go with him, Andrew,” said Evan. “He is here as my friend, and may be made uncomfortable.” “Yes, yes,—ha! ha! I’ll follow the poor chap,” said Andrew. “But what is it all about? Louisa won’t go, you know. Has the girl given you up because she saw your mother, Van? I thought it was all right. Why the deuce are you running away?” “Because I’ve just seen that I ought never to have come, I suppose,” Evan replied, controlling the wretched heaving of his chest. “But Louisa won’t go, Van.” “Understand, my dear Andrew, that I know it to be quite imperative. Be ready yourself with Caroline. Louisa will then make her choice. Pray help me in this. We must not stay a minute more than is necessary in this house.” “It’s an awful duty,” breathed Andrew, after a pause. “I see nothing but hot water at home. Why—but it’s no use asking questions. My love to your mother. I say, Van,—now isn’t Lady Jocelyn a trump?” “God bless her!” said Evan. And the moisture in Andrew’s eyes affected his own. “She’s the staunchest piece of woman-goods I ever—I know a hundred cases of her!” “I know one, and that’s enough,” said Evan. Not a sign of Rose! Can Love die without its dear farewell on which it feeds, away from the light, dying by bits? In Evan’s heart Love seemed to die, and all the pangs of a death were there as he trod along the gravel and stepped beneath the gates of Beckley Court. Meantime the gallant Countess was not in any way disposed to retreat on account of Evan’s defection. The behaviour toward him at the breakfast-table proved to her that he had absolutely committed his egregious folly, and as no General can have concert with a fool, she cut him off from her affections resolutely. Her manifest disdain at his last speech, said as much to everybody present. Besides, the lady was in her element here, and compulsion is required to make us relinquish our element. Lady Jocelyn certainly had not expressly begged of her to remain: the Countess told Melville so, who said that if she required such an invitation she should have it, but that a guest to whom they were so much indebted, was bound to spare them these formalities. “What am I to do?” The Countess turned piteously to the diplomatist’s wife. She answered, retiringly: “Indeed I cannot say.”