Alone? Yes, hopelessly alone. Alone with that one secret love in her heart, that no one must know or guess at, not even her mother. Yes, it was hard, very hard. Was she not striving hard to forget him? Perhaps she would die in the struggle, she felt so hopelessly unequal to face the storm; perhaps it was best she should die. But then her mother? Yes, she must live for her, and forget him. It would not be so difficult, seeing he loved her not, would perhaps never see her again. She was glad _he_ had not known of her fainting. And who could have told Mr. Linchmore? Was it Frances? CHAPTER XII. LOOKING FOR THE "BRADSHAW." "Yet though my griefe finde noe redress, But still encrease before myne eyes, Though my reward be cruelnesse, With all the harme, happs can devyse, Yet I profess it willingly To serve and suffer patiently. There is no griefe, no smert, no woe, That yet I feel, or after shall, That from this minde may make me goe, And whatsoever me befall, I do profess it willingly, To serve and suffer patiently." WYAT. "I am two fools, I know, For loving and for saying so." DONNE. Amy was not the only one who wept that night; Frances also did so at heart, for very anger and vexation. She had missed Mr. Linchmore almost immediately after she had sought Miss Neville; had suspected why he had done so, and managed to overhear almost every word of the latter part of their conversation, and when Amy went so sorrowfully out of the inner drawing-room Frances walked straight over to the fire, and seated herself in the easy chair where Amy had only a few minutes before sobbed out her very heart, almost. Frances had good cause for tears and anger, feeling she was being foiled and defeated when the end was almost won. Her conversation with Mr. Linchmore had been a false move, she had urged him on too quickly; but for that, he never would have seen his wife and Mr. Vavasour, and all would yet have been well; now all was going on wrong--utterly wrong. That Robert Vavasour would propose for Miss Neville was certain. That Miss Neville meant to refuse him was certain, too. The first she had fully calculated upon, but not the latter. She had intended the first to take place only when Amy had been so hopelessly entangled that she could not escape, could not say no, and now to be defeated at the very moment of victory, was almost more than her proud spirit could brook. Was all her plotting to be of no use? all to be lost? and to be lost now? Now that the end was all but attained, and it wanted but one final stroke for Amy to be lost to Charles for ever!