To Audley's mind there was a freshness and innocence about Sybil, that made her image dwell in his heart prominently, and more vividly than the dashing and showy Mabel and Rose Trecarrel could have conceived to be possible. Moreover, there was, to him, something glorious in the conviction that for the sake of this lovely young girl he had confronted a manifest peril; that by doing so he had saved her and established--as he hoped--a tie of no ordinary strength and peculiarity between them, linking, in the future, their histories if not their lives together; for to him she owned now, most probably, the fact that she existed at all. Such were the kind of thoughts to which Trevelyan, hitherto a heedless and pleasure-loving young subaltern of Hussars, indulged in many a dreamy hour, even when half flirting or "chaffing" with the Trecarrels, riding or driving abroad with them, turning the leaves at the piano while Rose displayed the perfection of her white shoulders and taper arms after dinner, and dawdled languidly over the airs of Verdi and Balfe; and to which he fully abandoned himself, when he strolled forth alone, to enjoy a cigar in the lawn or in some secluded lane. Sybil on her part deemed it equally delightful, to think that she owed her life to him; for had not Audley and others said (and she felt the truth of it) that, ere the ebb of the tide should have left the lower end of the cavern open and free, she must have perished of cold or terror, or both. She had read the contents of many a box from "Mudie's," but no episode in any of the three volumes octavo therein seemed exactly to resemble hers in the Pixies' Hole. It was very romantic and strange, no doubt; but to Constance it appeared that the still concealed part of their relationship was the most strange and romantic feature in the affair. Like most, if not all, young girls, she had read all about love in novels and romances; she had talked about love to school-companions, some of them enthusiastic Italian girls at Como, by the Arno, and elsewhere; and now a lover had actually come, one who on three successive days had left cards, with earnest inquiries concerning her health and that of her mamma. She remembered the endearment of his manner when he saved her, but feared, at times, that such might only have been caused by the peculiarity of their situation; and then she would blush with annoyance at herself, as she recalled the somewhat too pointed way in which she questioned him about Rose Trecarrel, to whom she was still a stranger, and of whom she had thus evinced a jealousy--actually a jealousy, as if thereby assuming a right to question his actions! But had he not called her Sybil, and said that he loved her, and her only?