“We seem wonderfully interested in each other’s movements,” observed Frank, as they walked on, with rather an awkward laugh. He evidently, for some reason or other, did not feel particularly comfortable in his present society. Ralph did not reply, and for a minute or two there was silence. Suddenly the same uncontrollable impulse again seized him, and he did not resist it. “It’s absurd,” he thought, “going on in this way. It will be a ghastly satisfaction to hear it confirmed by his own lips.” He turned to Frank. “Excuse me, Berwick, if I am premature—I have certainly not yet heard it formally announced—but—I am right, am I not, in congratulating you?” Frank looked confused and exceedingly surprised. A cloud of not small annoyance began to creep up over his handsome face. “You must excuse me, Severn, but I haven’t the remotest idea what you are talking about. ‘Congratulate me.’ On what, pray?” It was intensely disagreeable for Ralph. The last man on earth to pry into, or gossip about his neighbours’ affairs; who, indeed, carried to such an extreme his sensitive horror of intrusion, his shy avoidance of all matters of personal interest, that, in a general way, his nearest friend might have lost a fortune or gained a wife without his appearing to have heard of the event. He would have given worlds to have made some half apology, to have shuffled out of it with some muttered words of “must have been a mistake,” or “only a piece of the usual Altes gossip, which Captain Berwick must excuse.” But he was determined to have done with it and drove himself on remorselessly. “On your marriage,” he said quietly, “or, rather, I should say on your engagement to be married.” “To whom?” asked Frank, in a constrained voice. “To Miss Freer,” replied Ralph. “And who told you?” asked Frank again. “No one in particular,” answered Ralph, beginning to chafe under all this cross-questioning; “I heard it in several quarters, and you may be sure I felt no doubt of the truth of the report, or I certainly would not have motioned any young lady’s name, as I have just now done.” He spoke stiffly. He could not understand Frank’s behaviour. But his bewilderment changed to utter astonishment, when suddenly Captain Berwick turned round upon him. “ ‘No one in particular;’ you say Sir Ralph Severn, told you this piece of News. Then perhaps you will be so good as till this friend of yours ‘no one in particular,’ that he or she will do better in future to refrain in the first place from believing, and in the second place from circulating, such idle and mischievous tales, for which there is no foundation whatever in fact. As to whether this piece of advice may not with peculiar propriety be extended to yourself, I leave you to judge.” So saying he bowed stiffly, his face flushed with excitement and indignation, and turning sharply in an opposite direction, left Ralph to pursue his walk alone.