He grew to look upon it as a positive certainty; he believed, without a shadow of doubt, that it must be the fact: and how bitterly and resentfully he all at once hated Tom Palmer, that gentleman himself would have been surprised to find. It was only natural that Travice should feel it as a personal injury inflicted on himself--a slight, an insult; you all know, perhaps, what this feeling is: and in his temper he would not for some days go near Lucy. It was only when he heard the news that Mildred was returning to London, and would take her niece with her, that he came to his senses. That same evening he took his way to the house. Mildred, it should be observed, was equally at cross-purposes. She hastened to speak to Lucy the day of Mrs. Arkell's visit, asking her if _she_ had heard that Travice was engaged to Miss Fauntleroy; and Lucy answered after the manner of a reticent, self-possessed maiden, and made light of the thing, and was altogether a little hypocrite. "Known _that_! O dear, yes! for some time," she said. "It would be a very good thing for Travice." And so Mildred put aside any slight romance she had carved out for them, as wholly emanating from her imagination; but the sore feeling--that Lucy was despised by the mother, perhaps by the son--clung to her still. She was sitting alone when Travice entered. He spoke for some time on indifferent subjects--of the news of the town; of her journey to London; of her future plans. They were to depart on the morrow. "Where's Lucy?" he suddenly asked; and there was a restlessness in his manner throughout the interview that Mildred had never observed before. "She is gone to spend the evening with Mrs. Palmer. I declined. Visiting seems quite out of my way now." "I should have thought it would just now be out of Lucy's," spoke Travice, in a glow of resentment. "Ordinary visiting would be," returned Miss Arkell, speaking with unnecessary coldness, and conscious of it. "Mrs. Palmer was here this afternoon; and, seeing how ill Lucy looked, she insisted on taking her home for an hour or two. Lucy will see no one there, except the family." "What makes her look ill?" Miss Arkell raised her eyes at the tone. "She is not really ill in body, I trust; but the loss of her father has been a bitter grief to her, and it is telling upon her spirits and looks. He was all she had in the world; for I--comparatively speaking--am a stranger." There was a pause. Travice was leaning idly against the mantel-piece, in his favourite position, twirling the seals about that hung to his chain, his whole manner bespeaking indifference and almost contemptuous unconcern. Had anyone been there who knew him better than Mildred did, they could have told that it was only done to cover his real agitation. Mildred stole a glance at the fine young man, and thought that if he resembled his father in person, he scarcely resembled him in courtesy.