She danced with Goring, with Dalton, and in quick succession with all the men who again and again pressed round her, and whose names were on her card, including even the slighted Lord Twesildown, to whom several bumpers of champagne had given fresh courage, while the crushed and bewildered Jerry watched her from the doorway; and none who saw her there in all the radiance of her rare beauty, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks flushing, her whole face wreathed with smiles, would have imagined the turmoil of angry thoughts surging in her snow-white bosom. On one hand Lady Wilmot was intensely irritated to see Jerry looking so _distrait_--'put out'--after his too evident confabulation in the conservatory with Miss Chevenix, and on the other she was exasperated to see the fast and furious love and flirtation between that young lady and the vapid Lord Twesildown, as she had views of her own regarding him and Cousin Emily, so Lady Wilmot was sorely worried by the general results of Jerry's birthday ball. At last the guests began to depart, and Bella's father led her away; Twesildown shawled her in the hall, and handed her into their snug family brougham, and she was driven home through the familiar country lanes and roads like one in a dream. That Jerry Wilmot, whom, in her secret heart she actually loved so dearly, should have insulted her in that supreme moment of declaring his passion by inference, as she thought, by broadly hinting of her humbler origin and the disparity of their position in society--a disparity his proud mother had often made her feel keenly--stung the impulsive and naturally warm-hearted girl. She threw off her ball-dress in hot and angry haste, tossed her few ornaments from her, and, casting herself upon her bed, wept bitterly in her sense of disappointment and humiliation, while the dim, grey hours of the winter morning stole slowly over the landscape and the silent village of Wilmothurst. CHAPTER IV. THE VISIT. Bella Chevenix took an early opportunity of questioning her father, though apparently in a casual way, as to the nature of the interview that had taken place between him and Jerry Wilmot--the interview to which the latter had referred so mysteriously and in broken accents. Mr. Chevenix told her all about it, adding, when he saw how she changed colour, and seemed deeply moved by his information: 'Why do you ask, Bella?' 'Because--I never have secrets from you, papa--he referred to his interview in a very remarkable manner in the conservatory.' 'Did he propose to you?' 'No, papa,' said Bella, colouring painfully now; 'but he nearly--very nearly did so.' 'A nice move towards paying off the mortgages truly!' said Mr. Chevenix, with a rather contemptuous laugh. 'He _condescended_ to express his love for me,' thought Bella, 'and a proposal would, of course, have followed; he would seek to marry me that thereby the encumbrances might be cleared from his estate!'