“I trust I am not advising you badly, my dear boy. I can only tell you what I think. It seems to me that if you and this young lady do really care for each other, as I believe you do—as I and my poor little Margaret cared for each other, fifteen years ago,” he said, with a gentle smile, “in this case,” he went on, “I think you should, to some extent, brave the future. The probability of your not surviving your mother is small. And I cannot help feeling more sanguine than you appear about the way she would act if she were once convinced your decision was irrevocable. Lady Severn, I have good reason to know, is kind-hearted and conscientious, though, I must allow, prejudiced; and, perhaps, naturally so. You don’t think it would be well to make an appeal to her before doing anything else?” “No, I don’t,” said Ralph. “At present it could do no good, and might do great harm. If I told her anything I must tell all, and imagine the horrors of her name being bandied about and insulted by my mother and Miss Vyse! For that girl hears everything. I have a dreadful idea that her suspicions are already aroused. Besides I should feel myself so much stronger to lay the case before my mother, if I felt I had something else to fall back upon. It would prove to her that I was most thoroughly in earnest. No, my first step must be to see my old chief.” Just then their roads parted. They separated with a hearty shake of the hand, and a few strong words of thanks from Ralph for his former tutor’s sympathy and advice. “You will let me know how it all ends, my dear Ralph,” said Mr. Price, as he left him. “Most certainly. But I shall see you again?” “It is doubtful,” replied the tutor. Any day now the Countess may decide on leaving Altes. And if you set off for England in a few days, we may be away when you return.” “I hope not,” said Ralph. And then he walked home quickly, trying to arrange his plans in his mind. “I should much like to be sure, quite sure, of what Berwick told me,” he thought; “and yet I see no way of satisfying myself without risk of committing her to more than at present I have a right to ask. But I couldn’t endure to go about in an underhand way; prying into her innocent thoughts and feelings. And on the other hand, I can’t endure to think that she may now be suffering, through my apparent coldness. Suffering, my poor little girl—and for me!” At that moment he felt inclined to brave all, and rush off to Mrs. Archer’s on the spot. Thinking threw no light on the difficulty. All he could decide upon was to make immediate preparations for another visit to England; and for the rest to be guided by circumstances, and by his honest determination to think first and most of her happiness. Notwithstanding, however, all his misgivings and anxieties, the Ralph Severn who ran lightly up the long stone staircase of No. 5, was a very different being from the grave, careworn man who had slowly descended those same steps a few hours previously.