No arguments that Mostyn could adduce had any effect upon her, nor would she consent to his suggestion that she should leave her home and settle with him. His idea was that he could easily have installed her at Partinborough Grange. But again Cicely shook her head, though her eyes glistened and became wet with tears at her inability to accept. The truth was that she was afraid, and perhaps not without reason, for, if she were free from her father's yoke, living under her brother's care--her brother, who was so constantly in the company of Pierce--well, then, the temptation that both she herself and her lover would have to endure might be more than their strength could withstand. They might meet, the probability was that they would meet, and then Pierce would want to set not only Mr. Clithero but his own father as well at defiance. And to do this would mean his ruin: Cicely quite understood that, and she was not going to allow him to run the risk. It was wiser, far wiser, for her to endure her life at home, almost unbearable though it was becoming because of her father's ill-temper so often directed against herself, and because of the overbearing manner which both James and Charles had adopted towards her: it was better for her to put a brave face upon all this and to wait till the year's probation had expired, hoping against hope that all might be well in the end. Mostyn, concerned as he was for his sister, had seen the reason of her arguments, and he had comforted her as best he could, assuring her of Pierce's fidelity, and pointing out, adopting a tone of levity that he did not feel, that some months of the year had already passed, and that the rest would go by quickly enough. But all the same, his heart bled for his sister, and he would have liked nothing better than to have had a few minutes uninterrupted conversation with those brothers of his, James the Prig and Charles the Sneak; it was against them that his animosity was chiefly directed, for he knew that his father acted rightly according to his lights; but as for the two younger men--well, Mostyn had good reason to mistrust them both.