“Well, at any rate, the story would come with so much better a grace from him that I shall give him the chance; I won’t go over to the Hall till the end of the week; he may have written and told his father before then.”

Cynthia held her tongue for a little while. Then she said, with tearful pettishness—

“A man’s promise is to override a woman’s wish, then, is it?”

“I don’t see any reason why it should not.”

“Will you trust in my reasons when I tell you it will cause me a great deal of distress if it gets known?” She said this in so pleading a voice that, if Mr. Gibson had not been thoroughly displeased and annoyed by his previous conversation with her mother, he must have yielded to her. As it was, he said coldly—“Telling Roger’s father is not making it public. I don’t like this exaggerated desire for such secrecy, Cynthia. It seems to me as if something more than is apparent was concealed behind it.”

“Come, Molly,” said Cynthia suddenly; “let us sing that duet I’ve been teaching you; it’s better than talking as we are doing.”

It was a little lively French duet. Molly sang it carelessly, with heaviness at her heart; but Cynthia sang it with spirit and apparent merriment; only she broke down in hysterics at last, and flew upstairs to her own room. Molly, heeding nothing else—neither her father nor Mrs. Gibson’s words—followed her, and found the door of her bedroom locked; and for all reply to her entreaties to be allowed to come in, she heard Cynthia sobbing and crying.

It was more than a week after the incidents just recorded, before Mr. Gibson found himself at liberty to call on the Squire; and he heartily hoped that, long before then, Roger’s letter might have arrived from Paris, telling his father the whole story. But he saw at the first glance that the Squire had heard nothing unusual to disturb his equanimity. He was looking better than he had done for months past; the light of hope was in his eyes, his face seemed of a healthy ruddy colour, gained partly by his resumption of outdoor employment in the superintendence of the works, and partly because the happiness he had lately had through Roger’s means caused his blood to flow with regular vigour. He had felt Roger’s going away, it is true; but, whenever the sorrow of parting with him pressed too heavily upon him, he filled his pipe, and smoked it out over a long, slow, deliberate re-perusal of Lord Hollingford’s letter, every word of which he knew by heart; but expressions in which he made a pretence to himself of doubting, that he might have an excuse for looking at his son’s praises once again. The first greetings over, Mr. Gibson plunged into his subject.

“Any news from Roger yet?”

“Oh, yes; here’s his letter,” said the Squire, producing his black leather case, in which Roger’s missive had been placed, along with the other very heterogeneous contents.

Mr. Gibson read it, hardly seeing the words, after he had by one rapid glance assured himself that there was no mention of Cynthia in it.

“Hum! I see he doesn’t name one very important event that has befallen him since he left you,” said Mr. Gibson, seizing on the first words that came. “I believe I’m committing a breach of confidence on one side; but I’m going to keep the promise I made the last time I was here. I find there is something—something of the kind you apprehended —you understand—between him and my step-daughter, Cynthia Kirkpatrick. He called at our house to wish us good-bye, while waiting for the London coach, found her alone, and spoke to her. They don’t call it an engagement; but of course it is one.”