May glanced at Owen, but as he did not speak on the instant, she did. She took her aunt's passive fingers in her own, and said, "Aunt Pauline, he had a right to insist on seeing me, because----" "Excuse me, May," interrupted Mrs. Dormer-Smith, waving the girl off, "I beg you will go to your own room; _I_ will speak with this gentleman." Her tone would have suited the announcement that she was prepared to undergo martyrdom; and she sank into a chair in an attitude of graceful exhaustion. "No, Aunt Pauline, I _cannot_ go away until I have spoken," cried May pleadingly. "Please to hear me. I wished to tell you the truth long ago, but I was bound by a promise; now we are both agreed that it is right to speak out, are we not?" she said, looking across at Owen. It seemed to her that he was less eager to claim her, less proud of her affection, less ardently loving, than her imagination had pictured him. There was something in the quietude of his attitude which depressed and mortified her; it was like--almost like indifference. An insidious jealousy was discolouring everything which she looked on with her "mind's eye." It is not always a sufficient defence against a poison of that sort to have a noble, candid nature, any more than it is a sufficient defence against foul air to have sound, healthy lungs; it will fasten sometimes on the worthiest qualities: a humble opinion of ourselves, a high admiration for others. The hinted slanders which May had heard had aroused no baser suspicion in her than that Owen perhaps did not love her so entirely as he at first had fancied--that his sympathy and compassion and admiration for Louisa Bransby were strong enough to compete with his attachment for _her_. And she knew by her own heart that if this were so his love was not such a love as she had dreamed of--not such a love as she had given to him. And yet all the while she was struggling against the influence of this subtly-penetrating distrust, and trying to shake it off, like an ugly dream. "I am engaged to marry Owen Rivers," she said abruptly, after a pause which lasted but an instant, but which had seemed long to her. "No, no; I must beg you to retire. I cannot hear this sort of thing," returned her aunt, waving her hand again, and turning away her head. "_You_, at least, must understand, Mr. Rivers, that it is entirely out of the question. How you can have entertained so preposterous an idea I cannot imagine. You must have seen something of the world, I presume? You ought to be able to perceive that--but, in short, the thing is preposterous, and cannot be seriously discussed for a moment." May Cheffington's blood was rising. "I do not intend to discuss it," she said haughtily.