Was it amusing? or simply execrable? Some charity for the unhappy document Lady Charlotte found when she could say: “I suppose this is the general run of the kind of again.” “Was it?” she reflected; and drank at the words again. “No,” she came to think; “men don't commonly write as he does, whoever wrote this.” She had no doubt that it was Wilfrid. By fits her wrath was directed against him. “It's villany,” she said. But more and more frequently a crouching abject longing to call the words her own--to have them poured into her heart and brain--desire for the intoxication of the naked speech of love usurped her spirit of pride, until she read with envious tears, half loathing herself, but fascinated and subdued: “Mine! my angel! You will see me to-morrow.--Your Lover.” Of jealousy she felt very little--her chief thought coming like a wave over her: “Here is a man that can love!” She was a woman of chaste blood, which spoke to her as shyly as a girl's, now that it was in tumult: so indeed that, pressing her heart, she thought youth to have come back, and feasted on the exultation we have when, at an odd hour, we fancy we have cheated time. The sensation of youth and strength seemed to set a seal of lawfulness and naturalness, hitherto wanting, on her feeling for Wilfrid. “I can help him,” she thought. “I know where he fails, and what he can do. I can give him position, and be worth as much as any woman can be to a man.” Thus she justified the direction taken by the new force in her. Two days later Wilfrid received a letter from Lady Charlotte, saying that she, with a chaperon, had started to join her brother at the yacht-station, according to appointment. Amazed and utterly discomfited, he looked about for an escape; but his father, whose plea of sickness had kept him from pursuing Emilia, petulantly insisted that he should go down to Lady Charlotte. Adela was ready to go. There were numbers either going or now on the spot, and the net was around him. Cornelia held back, declaring that her place was by her father's side. Fine Shades were still too dominant at Brookfield for anyone to tell her why she stayed. With anguish so deep that he could not act indifference, Wilfrid went on his miserable expedition--first setting a watch over Mr. Pericles, the which, in connection with the electric telegraph, was to enable him to join that gentleman speedily, whithersoever he might journey. He was not one to be deceived by the Greek's mask in running down daily to Brookfield. A manoeuvre like that was poor; and besides, he had seen the sallow eyes give a twinkle more than once.