“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said in a whining voice: “the Lord knows I beg your pardon; and what’s more, I didn’t mean nothing of what I said. It was jealousy that made me speak so, jealousy bitter as the grave; and when I heard you talk of her getting fond of that Captain—my Joan fond of another man, a gentleman too, who would be bound to treat her as her mother was treated by some villain—it seemed as though all the wickedness in the world bubbled up in my heart and spoke through my mouth.” “There, that will do,” answered Mr. Levinger testily. “See that you do not let such wickedness bubble again in your heart, or anywhere else, that’s all; for at the first sign of it—and remember I shall have my eye on you—there will be an end of your courtship. And now you had better go. Take my advice and ask her again in a week or so; you can come and tell me how you get on. Good-day.” Samuel picked up his broad hat, bowed, and departed, walking delicately, like Agag, as though he expected at every moment to put his foot upon an egg. “Upon my word,” thought Mr. Levinger, “I’m half afraid of that fellow! I wonder if it is safe to let the girl marry him. On the whole I should think so; he has a great deal to recommend him, and this kind of thing will pass off. She isn’t the woman to stand much of it. Anyway, it seems necessary for everybody’s welfare, though somehow I doubt if good will come of all this scheming.” CHAPTER XIII. A MEETING BY THE MERE. Mr. Levinger’s confidential interview with Mrs. Gillingwater was not long in bearing fruit. Joan soon became aware that her aunt was watching her closely, and most closely of all whenever she chanced to be in attendance on Henry, with whom she was now left alone as little as possible. The effect of this knowledge was to produce an intense irritation in her mind. Her conscience was guilty, but Joan was not a woman to take warning from a guilty conscience. Indeed, its sting only drove her faster along the downward road, much as a high-mettled horse often rebels furiously under the punishment of the whip. There was a vein of self-willed obstinacy and of “devil-may-cared-ness” in Joan’s nature that, dormant hitherto, at this crisis of her life began to assert itself with alarming power. Come what might, she was determined to have her way and not to be thwarted. There is this to be said in excuse for her, that now her whole being was dominated by her passion for Henry. In the ordinary sense of the word it was not love that possessed her, nor was it strictly what is understood by passion, but rather, if it can be defined at all, some strange new force, some absorbing influence that included both love and passion, and yet had mysterious qualities of its own. Fortunately, with English women such infatuations are not common, though they are to be found frequently enough among people of the Latin race, where sometimes they result in blind tragedies that seem almost inexplicable to our sober sense.