"Listen, Ethel!" he whispered. "It would be only to procure a license, and half an hour spent at All Souls with Mr. Hastings. It could be all done, and you away with me before nightfall." She scarcely understood his meaning. Then, as it dawned upon her, she bent her head and her blushing face, laughing at the wild improbability. "Oh, Thomas! Thomas! you are only joking. What would people say?" "Would it make any difference to us what they said?" "It could _not be_, Thomas," she whispered seriously; "it is as an impossible vision. Were all other things meet, how could I run away from my sister, on her bed of sickness, to marry you?" Ethel was right: and Thomas Godolphin felt that she was so. Punctilios must be observed, no matter at what cost. He held her fondly to his heart. "If aught of ill should arise to you from your remaining here, I shall blame myself as long as life shall last. My love! my love!" Mr. Godolphin could not linger. He must be at the bank, for Saturday was their most busy day of all the week: it was market-day at Prior's Ash: though he had stolen a moment to leave it when the imperfect news reached him. George was in the private room alone when he entered. "Shall you be going to Lady Godolphin's Folly this evening, George?" he inquired. "The Fates permitting," replied Mr. George, who was buried five fathoms deep in business; though he would have preferred to be five fathoms deep in pleasure. "Why?" "You can tell my father that I am sorry not to be able to spend an hour with him, as I had promised. Lady Godolphin will not thank me to be running from Lady Sarah's house to hers just now." "Thomas," warmly spoke George, in an impulse of kindly feeling: "I do hope it will not extend itself to Ethel!" "I hope not," fervently breathed Thomas Godolphin. CHAPTER VI. CHARLOTTE PAIN. A fine old door of oak, a heavy door, standing deep within a portico, into which you might almost have driven a coach-and-six, introduced you to Ashlydyat. The hall was dark and small, the only light admitted to it being from mullioned windows of stained glass. Innumerable passages branched off from the hall. One peculiarity of Ashlydyat was, that you could scarcely enter a single room in it, but you must first go down a passage, short or long, to reach it. Had the house been designed by any architect with a head upon his shoulders and a little common sense with it, he might have made it a handsome mansion with large and noble rooms. As it was, the rooms were cramped and narrow, cornered and confined; and space was lost in these worthless passages.