No more was seen or heard of Lady Emily at Matcham. Except the one fact that she had returned to Suffolk on the morning after her brief appearance at the Manor, nothing more was known about that poor lonely lady, whom adverse fate had cut adrift from all she loved. At Beechhurst closed shutters told of the master's absence; and the inquiries of the officious or the friendly elicited only the reply that Mr. Carew was still travelling in Africa, and that no letters had been received from him for a long time. He was in a country where there were no post-offices, the housekeeper opined, but she believed her ladyship heard from him occasionally. Geoffrey's return, and the news of his engagement to Miss Vincent, made a pleasant excitement in the village and neighbourhood. An early marriage was talked about. Mr. Wornock had told the Vicar that he was going to be married in a fortnight--had spoken as if he were sole master of the situation. "As if such a nice girl as Suzette would allow herself to be hustled into marriage without time for a trousseau," persisted Bessie Edgefield, who assured her friends that there would be no wedding that year. "It may be in January," she said; "but it won't be before the New Year." Geoffrey had pleaded in vain. He had won his sweetheart's promise; but his sweetheart was not to be treated in too masterful a fashion. "God knows why we are waiting, or what we are waiting for," he said, in one of those fits of nervous irritability, which even Suzette's influence could not prevent. "Hasn't my probation been long enough? Haven't I suffered enough? Haven't you kept me on the rack of uncertainty long enough to satisfy your love of power? You are like all women; you think of a lover as a surgeon thinks of a rabbit, too low in the scale for his feelings to be considered--just good enough for vivisection." "Can't we be happy, Geoffrey? We have everything in the world that we care for." "I can never be happy till I am sure of you. I am always dreading the moment in which you will tell me you have changed your mind." "I have given you my promise. Isn't that enough?" "No, it is not enough. You gave Allan your promise--and broke it." She started up from her seat by the piano, and turned upon him indignantly. "If you are capable of saying such things as that, we had better bid each other good-bye at once," she said. "I won't submit to be reminded of my wrong-doing by you, who are the sole cause of it. If I had never seen you, I should be Allan's wife this day. You came between us; you tempted me away from him; and now you tell me I am fickle and untrustworthy. I begin to think I have made a worse mistake in promising to be your wife than I made when I engaged myself to Allan." "That means that you are regretting him--that you wish he were here now--in my place." "Not in your place; but I wish he were safe in England. It makes me miserable to be so uncertain of his fate, for his mother's sake."