After this it is no surprise to find Dahlia abroad, and writing home letters breathing frantic worship of the husband she does not name. Rhoda’s trusting joy in the news is pitiful--more pitiful still her loyal endeavour to shield her beloved sister when the farmer’s wrath explodes over an unsigned announcement of the marriage. In reply to his cry, ‘Dahlia Blank! Who’s her husband? Has he got a name?’ she protests: ‘She was very hurried, father. I have a letter from her, and I have only “Dahlia” written at the end--no other name.’ ‘And you suspect no harm of your sister?’ ‘Father, how can I imagine any harm?’ And then the man in his wretched perplexity appeals to Robert, to whom he had hoped to marry Dahlia: ‘I’m shut in a dark room with the candle blown out. I’ve a sort of fear you have in that dilemma, lest you should lay your finger on edges of sharp knives; and if I think a step, if I go thinking a step, and feel my way, I do cut myself, and I bleed, I do. Robert, does this look like the letter of a married woman? I can’t think for myself. She ties my hands.’ To please Rhoda Robert would have lied, and said it did. ‘Her face was like an eager flower straining for life,’ but all he could reply was, ‘She says she’s married, and we’re bound to accept what she says.’ His answer is remembered wrathfully by Rhoda. Hearing that Edward is married to Dahlia, Mrs. Lovell exclaims, ‘Impossible! Edward has more heart than brains.’ She resolves not to forsake him in his folly, which means disaster for Dahlia, and ultimately for him. A letter from Dahlia in London brings up Rhoda to her, accompanied by this uncompromising father. Lugubrious portent, Dahlia is not visible to them when they call at her lodgings. Her letter shows that she saw them from the window. The next chapter unfolds the mystery. Dahlia is weeping and miserable, Edward uncomfortable and protesting. Like young men who embark lightly upon such perilous waters, he is irritated by the discovery that women are ‘pieces of machinery that, for want of proper oiling, creak, stick, threaten convulsions, and are tragic and stir us the wrong way.’ By way of medicine he suggests champagne and the theatre. To the same theatre Algernon and Dahlia’s family have gone, and we may imagine the sensation of their recognition of Dahlia in a box where Algernon has joined his cousin to help the fainting girl. Algernon only is seen, and is believed to be Dahlia’s seducer. There is sorrow and the face of stricken and humbled pride in the Kentish farm upon their return. The farmer’s sole aim now is to marry his remaining daughter respectably and forget the sinner. The scene between Rhoda and Robert, in which she still implores him to say that he thinks Dahlia innocent, is unforgettable--sharp, strong, and conflicting. He is sorry for Dahlia, and ready to marry the woman he loves if she will have him. Rhoda heard him not, ‘her brain was beating at the mystery and misery wherein