He proposed accordingly; but Pauline begged for four-and-twenty hours to consider her decision, and in the early morning went out into the Prado to think it all through, and deliberately to weigh the merits of the propositions made respectively by Adolphe de Noailles and Tom Durham; the result being that the sous-lieutenant's hopes were crushed for ever--or for fully a fortnight, when they blossomed in another direction--and that Pauline, dame du comptoir no longer, linked her fate with that of Tom Durham. Thenceforward they were all in all to each other. She had no relatives, nor, as he told her, had he. "I have not seen Alice for five years," he said to himself; "and from what I recollect of her, she was a stuck-up, straitlaced little minx, likely to look down upon my young friend the tiger here, and give herself airs which the tiger certainly would not understand; so, as they are not likely to come together, it will be better to ignore her existence altogether." In all his crooked schemes, and they were many and various, Pauline took her share, unflagging, indefatigable, clear in council, prompt in action, jealous of every word, of every look he gave to any other woman; at the same time the slave of his love and the prop and mainstay of his affairs. Tom Durham himself had not that quality which he imputed to his half-sister; he certainly was not strait-laced; but his escapades, if he had any, were carefully kept in the background, and Pauline, suspicious as she was, had never felt any real ground for jealousy until she had witnessed the scene at parting at the Southampton station. The Prado and its associations had faded out of her mind, and she was trying to picture to herself the various chances which could possibly have detained her husband, when a porter halted before her, and civilly touching his cap, asked for what train she was waiting. "The train for Weymouth," she replied. "For Weymouth!" echoed the porter; "the train for Weymouth has just gone." "Yes, I know that," said Pauline; "but I was expecting some one--a gentleman--to meet me. He will probably come in time for the next." "You will have a longish waiting bout," said the man; "next train don't come till two-forty-five, nigh upon three o'clock." "That is long," said Pauline. "And the next?" "Only one more after that," said the porter--"eight forty--gets into Weymouth somewhere between ten and eleven at night. You'll never think of waiting here, ma'am, for either of them. Better go into the town to one of the hotels, or have a row on the river, or something to pass the time." "Thank you," said Pauline, to whom a sudden idea had occurred. "How far is it from here to--how do you call the place--Hurstcastle?"