So Honor left it to Phoebe to give her own version, only wishing that the catastrophe had come to his knowledge before his arrangements had been made with Mr. Parsons. Phoebe had some difficulty in telling her story. Robert at first silenced her peremptorily, but after ten minutes relented, and said, moodily, 'Well, let me hear!' He listened without relaxing a muscle of his rigid countenance; and when Phoebe ended by saying that Miss Charlecote had ordered Lucy's room to be prepared, thinking that she might present herself at any moment, he said, 'Take care that you warn me when she comes. I shall leave town that minute.' 'Robert, Robert, if she come home grieved and knowing better--' 'I will not see her!' he repeated. 'I made her taking this journey the test! The result is nothing to me! Phoebe, I trust to you that no intended good-nature of Miss Charlecote's should bring us together. Promise me.' Phoebe could do nothing but promise, and not another sentence could she obtain from her brother, indeed his face looked so formidable in its sternness, that she would have been a bold maiden to have tried. Honora augured truly, that not only was his stern nature deeply offended, but that he was quite as much in dread of coming under the power of Lucy's fascinations, as Cilla had ever been of his strength. Such mutual aversion was really a token of the force of influence upon each, and Honor assured Phoebe that all would come right. 'Let her only come home and be good, and you will see, Phoebe! She will not be the worse for an alarm, nor even for waiting till after his two years at St. Wulstan's.' The reception of the travellers at Castle Blanch was certainly not mortifying by creating any excitement. Charles Charteris said his worst in the words, 'One week!' and his wife was glad to have some one to write her notes. This indifference fretted Lucy. She found herself loathing the perfumy rooms, the sleepy voice, and hardly able to sit still in her restless impatience of Lolly's platitudes and Charles's _insouciance_, while Rashe could never be liked again. Even a lecture from Honor Charlecote would have been infinitely preferable, and one grim look of Robert's would be bliss! No one knew whether Miss Charlecote were still in town, nor whether Augusta Fulmort were to be married in England or abroad; and as to Miss Murrell, Lolly languidly wondered what it was that she had heard.