Both were confused; both stopped, face to face, in hesitation. Constance grew crimson; Mr. Yorke pale. It was the first time they had met since the parting. There was an angry feeling against Constance in the mind of Mr. Yorke; he considered that she had not treated him with proper confidence; and in his proud nature--the Yorke blood was his--he was content to resent it. He did not expect to _lose_ Constance eventually; he thought that the present storm would blow over some time, and that things would come right again. We are all too much given to trust to that vague “some time.” In Constance’s mind there existed a soreness against Mr. Yorke. He had doubted her; he had accepted (if he had not provoked) too readily her resignation of him. Unlike him, she saw no prospect of the future setting matters right. Marry him, whilst the cloud lay upon Arthur, she would not, after he had intimated his opinion and sentiments: and that cloud could only be lifted at the expense of another. They exchanged a confused greeting; neither of them conscious how it passed. Mr. Yorke’s attention was then caught by the open letter in her hand--by the envelope bearing the foreign post-marks. “How is Mr. Channing?” he asked. “So much better that it seems little short of a miracle,” replied Constance. “Mamma says,” glancing at the letter, “that he can walk, leaning on her arm.” “I am so glad to hear it! Hamish told me last week that he was improving. I trust it may go on to a cure.” “Thank you,” replied Constance. And she made him a pretty little state curtsey as she turned away, not choosing to see the hand he would fain have offered her. Mr. Yorke’s voice brought a head and shoulders out at the breakfast-room door. They belonged to Lord Carrick. He and Lady Augusta were positively at breakfast at that hour of the day. His lordship’s eyes followed the pretty form of Constance as she disappeared up the staircase on her return to the schoolroom. William Yorke’s were cast in the same direction. Then their eyes--the peer’s and the clergyman’s--met. “Ye have given her up, I understand, Master William?” “Master William” vouchsafed no reply. He deemed it a little piece of needless impertinence. “Bad taste!” continued Lord Carrick. “If I were only twenty years younger, and she’d not turn up her nose at me for a big daft of an Irishman, _you’d_ not get her, me lad. She’s the sweetest little thing I have come across this many a day.” To which the Rev. William Yorke condescended no answer, unless a haughty gesture expressive of indignation might be called one, as he brushed past Lord Carrick into the breakfast-room.