“I know it’s my fault,” sobbed Penelope, “and I must seem dreadfully ungrateful after all your kindness. I had been so miserable about George’s silence, that when you told me about him yesterday I felt I had known it all along, and that it was really a relief the blow had fallen. And when you said he quite agreed that it was best to break off the engagement, a weight seemed to be taken off my mind. Of course I ought to have seen him myself--not shuffled off my responsibilities on you, and found out what he really felt, so as to keep him from sacrificing himself for me, and----” “Stuff and nonsense!” ejaculated Lady Haigh, very loudly and firmly. “Penelope, will you kindly leave off reproaching yourself and me, and tell me what the state of affairs is at present between you and George Ferrers? You don’t care a rap for him; but because he says he can’t take care of himself without a woman to help him, you are afraid to tell him that he is a coward to try to thrust his burden off on you. Are you engaged?” “No,” explained Penelope; “Colin did not wish that. It is only--only if he keeps straight, as he calls it, at Alibad, we are to be engaged again.” “And suppose you fall in love with some one else?” “Elma! how could I? We are practically engaged, of course.” “Not at all,” said Lady Haigh briskly. “You are under my charge, and I refuse to recognise anything of the kind. Until you’re engaged again Ferrers is no more to you than any of the other men, and I won’t have him hanging about. Why”--reading a protest in Penelope’s face--“what good would it be putting him on probation if he had all the privileges of a _fiancé_? And nothing is to be said about it, Penelope. I simply will not have it.” “I only want to do what is right,” said Penelope, subdued by her friend’s authoritative tone. “As you say, it will be a truer test for him if he does not come here often.” “Trust me to see to that. And Master Colin shall have a good piece of my mind,” said Lady Haigh resolutely. CHAPTER III. A BLANK SHEET.