A strong impression, call it a presentiment if you will, had taken hold of Adeline, that the very first word of disclosure to her father, though it were but a hint of it, would be the signal for her separation from Mr. St. John. She spoke of this to him, and she wrung a promise from him that he would be for the present silent; that at least during this few days' visit of the Baron's he should continue to appear as he did now--an acquaintance only. Rose would be there, and St. John's intimacy with the family, his frequent presence at Beaufoy, might be accounted for by his relationship to her, No relationship whatever in point of fact, as the reader knows; but Adeline chose to construe it into one. Mr. St. John at first hesitated to comply with her wish. It is true that he would have preferred, for reasons of his own--his debts and his estrangement from his brother--not to speak to Signor de Castella just yet; but he was given to be ultra honourable, and to maintain silence in such a case, though it were but for a week or two, jarred against his nature. Only to her imploring petition, to her tears, did he at length yield, and then conditionally. He must be guided, he said, by the behaviour of de la Chasse. "Should he attempt to offer you the smallest endearment, should he begin to whisper tender speeches in your ear, I should throw prudence to the winds, and step between you." "Oh, Frederick!" she answered, her cheek a burning red, her face bent in its maidenly confusion; "endearment--tender speeches--they are not known in France, in our class of society. Of such there is no fear. The Baron will be as politely ceremonious to me as though we were ever to remain strangers." And Adeline was right. Late in the afternoon of as hot and brilliant a day as the July sun ever shone upon, the carriage, containing the young-lady guests, which had been sent to Odesque to meet them, drew up at the château, in the very jaws of the lions. Mary Carr looked out. There, on the broad steps, in the exact spot where she had last seen him, looking as though not an hour had passed over his head since, stood Mr. St. John. He assisted them to alight, and Adeline ran out to receive them, so charmingly lovely in her white morning dress and pink ribbons. Madame de Castella also appeared, and after a cordial welcome, ordered the coachman to speed back with haste to Odesque, or he would not be in time for the arrival of the Paris train. "I expect my husband and M. de la Chasse," she explained, addressing her visitors. Mary Carr looked involuntarily at Adeline. She met the gaze, and a burning crimson rushed over her face and neck.