"Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Mildmay. I had no right to inquire into your motives at all." Mildmay was not vain; but he was a young man, and this was a young woman by his side, and it was she who had begun a conversation much too personal for so slight an acquaintance. When he thought of it, it was scarcely possible to avoid a touch of amiable complacency in the evident interest he had excited. "Nay," he said, with that smile of gratified vanity which is always irritating to a woman, "your interest in them can be nothing but flattering to me--though perhaps I may have a difficulty in understanding--" "Why, I am so much interested! Mr. Mildmay!" cried Cicely, with her eyes flashing, "don't you think if any one came to you to take your place, to turn you out of your home, to banish you from everything you have ever known or cared for, and send you desolate into the world--don't you think you would be interested too? Don't you think you would wonder over him, and try to find out what he meant, and why this thing was going to be done, and why--oh, what am I saying?" cried Cicely, stopping short suddenly, and casting a terrified look at him. "I must be going out of my senses. It is not that, it is not that I mean!" Poor Mildmay looked at her aghast. The flash of her eyes, the energy of her words, the sudden change to paleness and horror when she saw how far she had gone, made every syllable she uttered so real, that to pass it over as a mere ebullition of girlish temper or feeling was impossible; and there was something in this sudden torrent of reproach--which, bitter as it was, implied nothing like personal, intentional wrong on his part--which softened as well as appalled him. The very denunciation was an appeal. He stood thunderstruck, looking at her, but not with any resentment in his eyes. "Miss St. John," he said, almost tremulously, "I don't understand. This is all strange--all new to me." "Forget it," she said hastily. "Forgive me, Mr. Mildmay, when I ask your pardon! I did not think what I was saying. Oh, don't think of it any more!" "There is nothing to forgive," he said; "but you will tell me more? Indeed I am not angry--how could I be angry?--but most anxious to know."