But from that moment Lady Jane’s peace of mind faded away like a pleasant dream, and the familiar spectre began to haunt her again with its green eyes and whispered suggestions. She was ashamed that her manner showed some change towards Miss Scott herself, but she could not help it. Only yesterday at luncheon she, too, had seen Claude looking steadily at the governess with that expression which the girls had at once recognised--the alert glance and expectant readiness of the sportsman when birds are about; and now she had found two others of her flock in close conversation with the new charmer. As if that were not enough, she realised in a flash that this pretty creature was the undesirable governess whom her eldest son had been treating with so much kindness and familiarity for the sake of the learned and useful Herbert Scott. Coming upon her all at once, it was too much for Lady Jane to bear. “I really think you might employ your time better,” she said in icy tones, and thereupon she turned and went away, leaving the Colonel and Jocelyn together. Ellen understood very well what had happened, and she regretted her readiness in submitting to the cure. Her life at King’s Follitt had been very delightful, and she foresaw that her stay was now to be limited. On the other hand, she had never intended that it should last very long, and she had meant from the first to leave as soon as she was sure of having made a good impression on Lady Jane. It looked as if the moment had now come, and she talked the matter over with Lionel. It was always easy enough to get rid of the girls for half an hour in the course of a walk; and two or three days after the little scene in the library, Lionel and Ellen were sitting together again, on the rock by the moorland road, while Evelyn and Gwendolen tickled trout in the pool below on the other side of the knoll. “I must do one of two things,” Ellen said: “I must either redden my nose and go lame again, or I must go away, since I have ceased to be undesirable.” Lionel looked at her, and then at the ground, and was silent. He meant to marry her before long, but he was inclined to put off the moment when he must tell his father and mother of his intention. The Follitts were not timid people, as a family, and, in spite of his mild ways, the Colonel had distinguished himself in active service; but they were not more remarkable for moral courage than average people usually are, which was one reason why everybody liked them. People with noble qualities are sometimes very hard to live with: the daily exhibition of self-control is both discouraging and fatiguing to ordinary people who have not much of it, and those superior individuals who have no moral timidity rarely hesitate to show us what poor creatures we really are. In this respect Lionel, as well as his father and brother, was very like ordinary people. But Lady Jane was not, and they knew it, and their genuine affection was tempered by a wholesome dread.