"Mr Beverley, I think you forget a little," said Lucilla, with dignity. "I know nobody but yourself who has any suspicions of Mrs Mortimer. If it had been anybody but you, I should have laughed at them. But to return to the question," Miss Marjoribanks added, with calm grace: "I always used to be taught at Mount Pleasant that feelings had nothing to do with an abstract subject. I don't see, for my part, now you have mentioned it, why she should not marry him. It would arrange the money matter without any trouble; and I have always heard he was very nice," said the bold experimentalist, fixing her eyes calmly upon the Archdeacon's face. "I am sure I should never have thought of it, if it had been left to me; but speaking calmly, I don't see the objections, now it has been proposed. Oh, it is only the bell for luncheon that Thomas is ringing. Is it actually half-past one? and I expect some people," said Lucilla. She got up as she spoke and went to the mirror, and looked at herself with that beautiful simplicity which was one of Miss Marjoribanks's distinguishing features. "When one has been crying it always shows," she said, with a little anxiety. As for Mr Beverley, his state of mind, as the newspapers say, could better be imagined than described. "I must go away," he said, taking up his hat. "I don't feel capable of meeting strangers after this exciting conversation. Miss Marjoribanks," continued the Archdeacon, taking her hand, and holding it fast over his hat to give emphasis to his address, "at least I can trust to you not to breathe a word to Mrs Mortimer--not a syllable--of the horrible suggestion which has got utterance, I don't know how. I may surely trust to your honour," Mr Beverley said, with emphasis; but by this time Miss Marjoribanks considered it time to bring the crisis to an end. "I wish you would stay to luncheon," she said; "there are only one or two of my friends. As for _honour_, you know you gentlemen say that we have no sense of honour," said Lucilla airily; "and to think that two women could be together and not talk of what might perhaps be a marriage----"