She looked at Henrietta with the sadness of her desire to help her, the fear of her inability to do it; and Henrietta looked back with a hint of defiance, the symbol of her attitude to the cruel world in which fond lovers were despised and love had a hard road. Rose restrained an impulse to lean across the table and say quietly, “I saw you to-night with Francis Sales and I am sorry for you. He told me I should not let you meet him. He said that himself, so you see he does not want you,” and she wondered how much that cry of his had been uttered in despair of his passion and how much in weariness of Henrietta and himself. Rose leaned back in her chair and immediately straightened. She was intolerably tired but she refused to droop. It seemed as though she were never to be free from secrecy: after her release there had been a short time of dreary peace and now she had Henrietta’s fight to wage in secret, her burden to carry without a word. And this was worse, more difficult, for she had less power with which to meet more danger. Between the candle lights she sent a smile to Henrietta, but the girl’s mouth was petulantly set and it was a relief when Sophia quavered out, “She won’t be able to go to the Battys’ ball! She will be heart-broken.” Rose and Henrietta were momentarily united in their common amazement at the genuineness of this sorrow and to both there was something comic in the picture of the elderly Caroline, suffering from a chill and bemoaning the loss of an evening’s pleasure. Henrietta cast a look of scornful surprise at her Aunt Sophia. Was the Battys’ ball a matter for a broken heart? Rose said consolingly, “It isn’t till after Christmas. Perhaps she will be well enough.” “And Christmas,” Sophia wailed. “Henrietta’s first Christmas here! With Caroline upstairs!” “I don’t like Christmas,” Henrietta said. “It makes me miserable.” “But you will like the ball,” Rose said. “Why, if it hadn’t been for the ball we might have been in Algiers now.” “With Caroline ill! I should have sent for you.” “Shall we start, Henrietta, in a few weeks’ time?” She ignored Henrietta’s vague murmur. “Oh, not until Caroline is quite well, Sophia. We could go to the south of France, Henrietta. Yes, I think we had better arrange that.” Rose felt a slightly malicious pleasure in this proposal which became a serious one as she spoke. “You must learn to speak French, and it is a long time since I have been abroad. It will be a kindness to me. I don’t care to go alone. We have no engagements after the middle of January, so shall we settle to go then?” There was authority in her tone. “We shall avoid brigands, Sophia, but I think we ought to go. It is not fair that Henrietta’s experiences should be confined to Radstowe.” “Quite right, dear.” Sophia was unwillingly but nobly truthful. “We have a duty to her father, but say nothing to Caroline until she is stronger.”