It would soon be over and forgotten, but Judith suffered acutely while it lasted. Perhaps it was well that she was forced to think about her own prospects, which were none of the brightest. "Shall you go to Rookleigh?" Percival asked her a couple of days later. She shook her head: "No: I'm too proud, I suppose, or too miserable: I can't have my failure here talked over. Aunt Lisle's conversation is full of sharp little pin-pricks, which are all very well when they don't go straight into one's heart." He saw her lip quiver as she turned her face away. "Where will you go, then?" he asked with gentle persistence. It was partly on his own account, for he feared that a blow was in store for him, and he wanted to know the worst. "I shall not go anywhere. I shall not leave Brenthill." The blood seemed to rush strongly to his heart: his veins were full of warm life. She would not leave Brenthill! "I will stay, at any rate, while Miss Crawford remains here. She will not speak to me, she has forbidden me to attempt to see her, but I cannot go away and leave her here alone. I may not be of any use--I do not suppose I shall be--but while she is here I will not go." "But if she left?" "Still, I would not leave Brenthill if I could get any work to do. I feel as if I must stay here, if only to show that I have not gone away with Bertie to live on Emmeline's money. Poor Emmeline! And when he used to talk of my not working any more, and he would provide for me, I thought he meant that he would make a fortune with his opera. What a fool I was!" "It was a folly to be proud of." He was rewarded with a faint smile, but the delicate curve of the girl's lips relaxed into sadness all too soon. The table at her side was strewn with sheets of roughly-blotted music, mixed with others daintily neat, which Judith herself had copied. "His opera," she repeated, laying the leaves in order. "Emmeline will be promoted to the office of critic and admirer now, I suppose. But I think the admiration will be too indiscriminate even for Bertie. Poor Emmeline!" "What are you going to do with all these?" said Thorne, laying his hand on the papers. "I am putting them together to send to him. I had a letter this morning, so I know his address now. He seems very hopeful, as usual, and thinks her father will forgive them before long." "And do you think there is a chance of it?" "No, I don't. Bertie did not hear what Mr. Nash said that afternoon to Miss Crawford and to me," she replied; and once again the color rushed to her face at the remembrance. "Miss Lisle," said Percival suddenly, "I am ready to make every allowance for Mr. Nash, but if--" "Oh, it was nothing. He was angry, as he had reason to be: that was all. And you see I am not used to angry men." "I should hope not. I wish I had been there."