They went on talking upon different topics; but while she questioned or answered, his jealous eyes detected some change in her. She was not cold to him; there was the same genial grace and cordiality, and yet there was a change. In a pause which presently ensued, a footstep passed on the flags outside. She raised her head quickly and looked up, with parted lips and a startled expression. ‘Do you expect some one?’ asked Myles; and so much were the words a part of the thought, that he scarcely knew he had spoken them, until she answered, ‘I--oh no! Why should I? But shall we not read some more of “Iphigenia”? Here is the book.’ She did not look at him. There was a sudden constrained expression upon her face as she opened the book, and he as suddenly felt his heart sink with a reasonless, aimless, lover’s pang. He said nothing, however, but obediently began to read. But neither his heart nor her’s was in the work, as usual. She had told him that he was an apt scholar; his intelligence was ready, and his ear quick, and attuned to the Lancashire gutturals, and its broad ‘a’s’ and ‘u’s’ found little difficulty with the corresponding German sounds. Myles, for his part, had treasured up that hour that she devoted to him once or twice a week, as if it had been some precious coin or gem. Then she was all attention to him; then she was thinking of nothing else but him and his lesson, and the idea was heavenly. But this very evening, for the first time, he was obliged to let himself understand that her attention wandered, that she sometimes scarcely heard what he said, and his anxiety and foreboding increased every moment. He was no favoured lover; he had striven assiduously to conceal every sign of his devotion, for fear it should annoy her, or repel her. He had no right to ask her why her attention strayed, what made her absent and _distraite_, and that very fact made him the more sensitive to the change in her manner. He read on, and translated, mechanically, dreamily, till he came to the words: ‘Und künft’ge Thaten drangen wie die Sterne, Rings um uns her, unzählbar aus der Nacht.’ ‘“And future deeds,”’ he slowly translated, while the sense of discord and oppression grew every moment stronger; ‘“and future deeds pressed about us, out of the night, countless as the stars.”’ She had not heard a word. He looked at her, with eyes that dared not be reproachful, and said nothing. There was pain, there was embarrassment, in her expression. Then she suddenly said, ‘I want to speak to you. Let us put away this book. I want to tell you something that I ought to have told you before.’ At once his face changed; the cloud fled; he turned to her with a smile. ‘Something you ought to have told me----’ he began. The door was opened. Just outside they heard the voice of Brandon, Mr. Blisset’s old servant, saying, ‘I will see whether Mr. Blisset is at liberty, sir, if you will step in here.’ Then he threw the door wide open and announced,