"Mr Eyrecourt is dead," said Beauchamp. "Oh yes, I know, but I mean it must be a relation of his who is seriously ill. If it were a relation of _yours_, it might be rather awkward, might it not? What should we do?" "Put off the marriage?" suggested Captain Chancellor, laughing, but not heartily. "Would you like that, Eugenia? Well, as it happens, the person in question _is_ a near relation of mine too--the nearest male relation of my own family in the world. You remember my telling you of the sudden death of a cousin of mine about two months ago--Mr Chancellor, of Halswood? This boy who is so ill now is his only son." "Is he _very_ ill?" asked Eugenia. "Yes," answered her fiance, with a slight shortness in his manner, giving the girl the impression that he disliked being questioned on the subject. ("How fond he must be of his poor young cousin!" was her simple interpretation of his unresponsiveness.) "Yes, I fancy so. I don't suppose he can live long." "Then," persisted Eugenia, her colour rising to her cheeks in spite of her endeavour to be perfectly calm and "sensible," "then should you not be with him, Beauchamp? Would it not be better--more--more seemly, perhaps, really to put off our marriage?" She made the suggestion in all good faith and unselfish anxiety in no way to add to what she now imagined must be the cause of her lover's constraint and depression; she was little prepared for the effect of her words. Captain Chancellor had been standing at a little distance from her, idly fingering a book that lay on the table while she read Mrs Eyrecourt's note. As she spoke he turned round, crossed the room quickly to where she sat, and stood before her with a dark look on his fair face, an angry light in his blue eyes. "Are you in earnest, Eugenia? Do you mean what you say?" he exclaimed, in a hard, unpleasant tone. "Do you know that what you have said is a most extraordinary thing for a girl to say to--to the man she is going to many, two days before the time fixed for doing so? Do you really mean that you are ready to catch at any excuse for putting off our marriage indefinitely? Perhaps you _really_ mean that you would like to put it off altogether--if so, you had better say so." A more suspicious or sophisticated girl would have taken fright at this strange distortion of the simple meaning of her words, might have guessed it to be a ruse on the part of her fiance to throw upon her the blame of what he himself was not brave enough to do in a straightforward fashion; a girl of a haughtier spirit than Eugenia would have felt nothing but indignation at the unmerited reproach, and in nine cases out of ten the "lovers' quarrel" certain to ensue would have ended in something the reverse of "very pretty." But Eugenia was too single-minded in her faith and devotion to feel anything but astonishment and distress.