Gilbert ate very little dinner, and poor Maida never taxed her skill to interest and enliven, with less success than during that meal. Her companion attempted to eat one thing and another, and he drank ice-water, but he had become deaf as the adder which refuses to hear the voice of the charmer. He parted from her at the dining-room door, saying he would go in search of brandy, as he really felt ill; and Maida ended the Sunday which had begun so brightly, in solicitude and wretchedness. She might have had as much sympathy as she pleased from her elderly friend, but the unending Denwiddie babble was more than she could endure. It was easier to be alone and nurse her anxiety. There was a foreboding on her spirit which she could not define, a clouding over of the future and its dawning hopes, which she felt but could not explain. Nothing had happened, so far as she knew, but she felt a frost in the air, which had been so warm and bland, and it was nipping the blossoms in her poor fool's paradise. CHAPTER XXV. ROSE AND THE RING. When Rose was left alone with Margaret in the fisherman's hut, she sat down upon a bench before the fire and gazed into the embers, falling into a reverie in which ideas not all pleasurable chased each other as fitfully as the leaping flames which licked the new-laid log, as if searching for a spot on which they might fasten and take hold. Her companion sat by and wondered at her silence. She had been so gay a little before, while the men were still with them, and now her lips were tightly closed, and there came an angry frown upon her brow. That changed into a look of triumph and disdain, which faded in its turn into one almost soft and pitiful; and that in time gave place to one of sadness, and she sighed, and her features fell into the desponding look of one who bids adieu to hope. She moved impatiently, as if to shake off brooding thoughts which were settling down to oppress and stifle her--as some stricken animal might struggle to beat back the greedy kites swooping down to tear their prey, ere death had prepared the feast. She roused herself with an effort, and turned to speak. "You have had a good time, Margaret, have you not?" "Perhaps I might say the same to you, Rose. You were very long of returning from your stroll. But I will not deny that I am glad we missed the boat." "You might tell a blind man that, my dear. The rest of us can see it. I admire your taste. He is a good fellow, I am sure, and handsome; and devoted too, if signs tell anything." "We have known each other all our lives--at least, since I was quite a little girl. It must be five years that we have known one another now." "A long time."