'Well, I'm sure I never heard of such a thing. They must have gone out together. But it is strange that Mr Nevill should have said nothing about going out. Miss Osborne, are you sure there is nothing the matter? You are looking very white.' 'I am quite well,' answered Kate. She felt perplexed about her brother, and confused about Nevill. She had passed a wakeful night. Two or three times before a man had seemed to court her society, but upon the introduction of anything like sentiment she had immediately and resolutely drawn back, and given the candidate wooer to understand she desired him to abandon the pursuit. Nevill had of late amused and diverted her. At first she had stood in mortal terror of that rattling tongue which dealt so freely with everyone, everything. Of late that feeling had worn away, and she could listen to his nonsense with a relish. She had never met anyone like him before; and when the shock of novelty had been overcome by time, she felt no repulsion from him or his rodomontade. She had never thought of the possibility of his falling in love. He was, she imagined, the last man in the world likely to marry and settle down. She had no more thought of his falling in love with her than of the Archbishop of Canterbury asking her to run away with him. What he had said when they were alone yesterday struck her as being peculiar, nothing more. It perplexed, puzzled, distressed her, that was all. It had, to her, no more indicated love than a polite bow indicates a proposal of marriage. All it had meant to her was that insensibly she had given him cause of disquietude. She would have been glad to remove that uneasiness by any assurance or proof she could give; but he had clung to the delusion with the greatest pertinacity until he turned over a new leaf of his mysterious book, and confessed he had been only playing at being hurt! He had, he said, invented a grievance to try an experiment, the nature of which he would not then divulge. She had tried to guess what that experiment could be, but failed. She had felt surprised and alarmed to think this man had been, unknown to her, trying experiments on her; but whether these experiments had been in repartee or mesmerism, she could not say. She had had no clue whatever to his meaning. Now she held the clue, but what an extraordinary, what an unlooked-for one it was! Although she had the clue to the experiment, she did not know what the experiment was. The clue was, he loved her! Could anything be more extraordinary than that he who had been over half the world, had seen girls of every degree of accomplishments and beauty, should single out her as the woman he would make his wife? She could not believe he was in earnest. She would again read the letter over after breakfast.