'But improbable, you think. It would entail unpleasantness. Still, the breaking off might be a mutual arrangement; it might.' He was silent again, struggling with the desperate hope that sprang up anew at the suggestion. It took him unawares. He had determined that Cynthia's manner that night should decide the future irrevocably for him. He would fight free of suspense, and suffer no paralysis of indecision. At last he smiled slightly, that smile of a radiance so rarely, softly bright that it fell like a benediction wherever it was bestowed. 'You want to soften things for me,' he said. 'In your goodness of heart, and because you knew her and me as children, and the love that I have had for her since, you do not wish that I should have to bear what is hard. I do find it hard, but I would rather it were a thousand times harder than that sorrow stepped into her path. I love her yet, and shall eternally, but it is and will be with "self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control." Let us pray God that there is no mistake, and if she marry Danby it may be a happy marriage.' Mrs. Hennifer could say no more. It was not expedient that any one but Mrs. Severn and herself should know that Lucius Danby was known to them until Cynthia herself knew. It was not likely that this knowledge was already hers. Mrs. Hennifer felt that if Mrs. Severn were trustworthy it was possible that this good wish of Tremenheere's would be fulfilled. She could scarcely yet reconcile herself to the idea of the match, since her conception of Cynthia's dignity was fastidious. She was convinced, too, that if the Admiral knew that his granddaughter's engagement was to a man who had been engaged to his agent's wife and jilted by her, Danby's proposal would be met with unceremonious and outraged denial. CHAPTER X OPINIONS AT LAFER HALL Tremenheere was early at the station that night. The evenings were now short and the lamps were lit. He walked up and down the platform waiting, his gaze passing from the line whose distant curve was lost in the gloom, to the starlit sky that roofed it. He was a tall thin man, with a slight stoop from the shoulders. Out of doors he wore an Inverness cloak. His complexion was swarthy, his fine cut features were full of sensitive feeling. His head was scholarly, and he wore his slightly curly black hair rather long; his eyes were piercing, the rare smile was an illumination to his whole face. Every one on the platform knew him and his errand; and Wonston already knew also that Miss Marlowe was not going to marry him. The footman from the Hall, lounging in the booking-office, the coachman on his box, each had his knot of gossipers, eager to gather every morsel of the great news that had stirred Wonston to its depths.