"Not much to hurt Imogen--I don't believe she really cares for him, it's only gratified vanity--but I hope and believe Major Rex will have a more thoroughly uncomfortable _quart d'heure_ than he has ever experienced," said Mabella, smacking her lips, so to say, in anticipation. "And you will be revenged, Trix, gloriously revenged on him, for his priggish meddling. And it will be all his own fault! That's _the_ beauty of it; he won't be able to blame any one else--not a shadow of suspicion will fall on you or me, if only you are sensible." "And," she added, to herself, in a lower tone, "_I_ shall be revenged. What are Trixie's babyish wrongs compared to _mine_?" Thus worked upon and primed, Beatrix, as usual, agreed to carry out Miss Forsyth's very precise and exact instructions. But Mabella's dictatorial and scornful tyranny had overshot the mark. "I know what she's after," thought Trixie. "_She's_ to have all the fun, to be in at the death; but _I'm_ not. And then she'll make some flimsy excuse afterwards! I know you, Miss Mabella Forsyth, and I can plot and plan too--ah, well, we shall see." It was a bright, clear, slightly frosty day. "The perfection of a day for a quick, brisk walk," thought Imogen, as in ample time to meet a passenger by the train in question, walking up from the station, she let herself out by a side door which opened on an unobserved path joining the long winding avenue at some distance from the house. It had not been without difficulty that she had escaped from her mother, or avoided telling her of Major Winchester's return. The girl's head and heart were in a state of ferment, and to her overstrained nerves Mrs Wentworth's fidgety excitement and anxiety was becoming almost unendurable. Added to this was a considerable element of perplexity and sore indignation--by every post she had looked for another and more coherent letter. "After writing like _that_" she thought, and not unreasonably, "he had no right to leave me all these days in this way." And now, Trixie's communications had still farther increased her mental distress by the jealousy of Florence they had skilfully suggested. "I believe he meant to consult her before he said anything more to me," thought Imogen, though the next moment her loyal trust in Rex's perfect honour caused her to discard the notion with disgust at herself for having entertained it. "No, not after going so _far_," she reflected. "Yet, but for Trixie, I could never have known he was coming. Poor Trixie! she is far truer after all, than Florence. I wonder if a letter can have miscarried," was her next idea, and one which so plausibly explained things, that she could not help turning it over and over in her mind. It had already occurred to Mrs Wentworth, and she had not failed to suggest it to Imogen. "If we knew his address, I almost think you might write to him," she had said. But Imogen turned upon her sharply.