“I will tell Francis Tredethlyn the truth about myself,” she thought; “he shall not be deceived as to anything in which I am concerned. He shall know of my engagement to Harcourt.” Maude did not go downstairs again that night, nor did Mr. Hillary send for her, as it was his wont to do when she was long away from him. It may be that he scarcely cared to encounter his daughter after that conversation in the dining-room, which had been far from pleasant to him. He was not a father of Mr. Capulet’s class, who could order his daughter to marry the County Paris at a few days’ notice; or in the event of her refusal, bid her rot in the streets of Verona. But from the very first he had been bent upon bringing about a union between Francis and Maude, and he brooded moodily over the girl’s resolute rejection of any such alliance. “What would become of her if I were to die to-morrow?” he thought; “and what is to become of my business if I fail to secure a rich partner?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XX. AN EXPLANATION. Francis Tredethlyn, now so frequent a visitor at the Cedars, happened to present himself there upon the day after that on which Maude had come to an understanding with her father. The young man rode down to Twickenham in the afternoon, and found Miss Hillary occupied with two croquet-playing young ladies and a croquet-playing young gentleman, whose manners and opinions were of the same insipidly flaxen hue as their hair and eyebrows.