Another moment, and they had whirled by, beyond view. George turned impulsively to Maria and drew her closer to him. "Thank God! thank God!" he earnestly said. "For what?" she murmured. "That _you_ are mine. Maria, I dreamt last night that I had married Charlotte Pain, and that you were dying. The dream has been haunting me all day. I can laugh at it now, thank God!" In the gayest and lightest room of Lady Godolphin's Folly, its windows open to the green slopes, the gay flowers, the magnificent prospect which swept the horizon in the distance, was Mrs. Verrall. She lay back in a _fauteuil_, in the vain, idle, listless manner favoured by her; toying with the ribbons of her tasty dress, with the cluster of gleaming trifles on her watch-chain, with her gossamer handkerchief, its lace so fine in texture that unobservant eyes could not tell where the cambric ended and the lace began, with her fan which lay beside her, tapping her pretty foot upon an ottoman in some impatience; there she sat, displaying her conscious charms, and waiting for any callers, idle and vain as herself, who might arrive to admire them. At a distance, in another _fauteuil_, listless and impatient also, sat Rodolf Pain. Time hung heavily on Mr. Pain's hands just now. He was kept a sort of prisoner at Lady Godolphin's Folly, and it appeared to be the chief business of Charlotte Pain's life to be cross to him. Three weeks had his sojourn there lasted: and though he had hinted to Charlotte on his arrival that he might remain a goodly number of weeks--interminable weeks, was the expression, I think--he had not really expected to do so; and the delay was chafing him. What particular business might be keeping Mr. Pain at Prior's Ash it is not our province at present to inquire: what his especial motive might be for rather shunning observation than courting it, is no affair of ours. He did not join Mrs. Verrall in her visiting: he had an innate dislike to visitors--to "fine people," as he phrased it. Even now, if any carriage drove up and deposited its freight at the Folly, it would be the signal for Mr. Rodolf Pain to walk out of the drawing-room. He was shy, and had not been accustomed to society. He strolled in and out all day in his restlessness, nearly unnoticed by Mrs. Verrall, fidgeting Charlotte Pain; a cigar in his mouth, and his hands in his pockets; sauntering about the grounds, flinging himself into chairs, one sentence of complaint for ever on his lips: "I wish to goodness Verrall would write!" But Verrall did not write. Mrs. Verrall had received one or two short notes from him after her return from London--where she had stayed but twenty-four hours--and all the allusion in them to Mr. Pain had been, "Tell Rodolf he shall hear from me as soon as possible." Rodolf could only wait with what patience he might, and feel himself like a caged tiger, without its fierceness. There was no fierceness about Rodolf Pain;--timidity rather than that.