Shortly after Osborne and Miss Gordon had left the drawing-room, Nevill raised his head, and saw he and Miss Osborne were alone. 'Bless my soul!' he cried, 'but they have slipped out. They are as artful as a pair of conspiring schoolboys.' She turned away her calm fair face to the room, and said,-- 'I did not hear them go.' 'That was their artfulness. Ah well, Miss Osborne, there is nothing sharpens the wits so much as love.' She made no reply. She felt a great reserve about George's love-affair. She spoke little or nothing to Marie about it. She would not speak to Mr Nevill. He might take it ill or well of her, but she would not speak. The sallow, plain-looking man raised his eyes quickly to hers. 'I suppose, Miss Osborne, you never met a greater fool than I?' 'Oh, Mr Nevill! How could you say such a thing! I am sure I never thought anything of the kind.' 'You always look at me as if you thought me a very great fool.' 'I am exceedingly sorry,' she said, with an appealing look, 'and I hope you forgive me. I did not mean it, believe--' 'Ah yes,' he sighed; 'I am sure you did not mean it I am quite sure of that. But what are you to do? You can't help it. You are young and candid. You see me. Your estimate of me immediately appears on your face. You cannot help letting me see you think me a very great fool.' 'But I assure you I do not think you anything of the kind,' cried the girl, in distress. She did not like to be drawn into an animated discussion, and nothing in the world could pain her more than to think she had unwittingly inflicted pain on others. 'You mustn't mind a bit, though,' he said quickly. 'I am quite used to being considered a fool, and it doesn't hurt me nearly as much as it would an average man.' 'Mr Nevill, I am greatly grieved and shocked to think you have got any such notion in your head. Pray dismiss it, I beg of you.' She was in great pain. She did not know how to convince him. He seemed disposed not to take her word for her innocence. What more could she give him than her word? 'You must not worry yourself in the least about it. I assure you nine out of ten people I meet take me for a fool. I should not have mentioned the matter to you at all, only your brother happens to be one of those tenth men, and does not take me for a fool; and I had an unwise hope you might look at me in somewhat the same way. I am sure you wouldn't do it if you could help it.' 'Mr Nevill, you are almost unkind to say such a thing. I assure you there is not the least truth in it. Do believe me. Can I in no way convince you?' She was in acute pain now. She could endure any pain herself; but the thought that she had inflicted pain on others was intolerable. 'Let me beg of you, Miss Osborne, not to mention the subject again. It is of really no consequence, and I have been most unfortunate in introducing the subject to you. I should have known it would hurt your good-nature. Forgive me, I beg of you! I hope you will forgive me. If you had been in doubt as to whether I was a fool or not, you can no longer be in any; for I may tell you frankly, I should not like you to despise me, and I don't know in what way I could more surely injure my chances of your good opinion than by alighting on so unhappy a subject of conversation. Really, Miss Osborne, you will do me the greatest possible favour if you will not again allude to the subject.' 'But,' she cried beseechingly, 'nothing in the world--' 'No, no, no, no! I beg--I pray of you not to say any more about my hideous blunder; I assure you I shall not forget it in an hour. What an unlucky fool I am!' She looked at him with a face full of pain. She did not know what to do, what to say. He would not believe her. She would not willingly hurt the humblest of God's creatures, and here was a man who had gravely disquieted her at first, but from whom she had latterly derived much amusement, attributing to her thoughts most uncomplimentary and ungenerous to him, thoughts which she did not entertain. She felt inclined to cry. It was cruel of him to fix such a charge upon her. She said, looking up earnestly at him,-- 'I think it is not generous of you to refuse taking my word for what I say. I am sure if you told me anything about yourself I should believe you.' 'I accept that test,' he answered quickly. 'Now, since I have met you, Miss Osborne, I daresay you have noticed that I speak now and then.' She smiled, and answered, 'Yes.' 'Now, do you believe every word I uttered?' 'No. You spoke a lot of things you did not want anyone to believe.' 'How do you know that?' 'I cannot tell you how I know it, but I am sure of it. You exaggerated so much. You told tales of your own adventures, which I think you invented to amuse those present.' 'And you don't think it much harm to invent adventures for the amusement of a general company?' 'Certainly riot. They do no harm to anyone; they do not deceive anyone.' 'Oh, I see. It is by the result you judge.' 'I don't understand you.' 'You think there is no harm in inventing tales so long as they do not hurt anyone and do not deceive anyone?' 'Yes. They are then no more than novels or poems.' 'Ah well, I don't agree with you there; but we will not discuss that. I want to ask you another question. Suppose a person had invented something with the sole view of paining and deceiving another, what would you think of the act and the man?' 'I should think it most unkind, ungentlemanly, most vile, and I should be sorry to know the man.' 'Ah,' he sighed, 'you see my second condition is worse than my former one.' 'What do you mean?' 'A little while ago I said you considered me a fool. Now you must think me a scoundrel.' 'Mr Nevill, you should not say such things! I think nothing of the kind of you.' 'You must.' 'Indeed, no.' 'But I tell you, you must; you cannot help it.' 'It is too bad of you to say such dreadful things. You are very hard on me, and I am not aware I have done anything to deserve it. I am sure I never thought you a fool; and as to the other thing, it is too dreadful even to think of.' 'Yet,' said he dismally, 'whatever reason you may have for not thinking me a fool, there isn't the shadow of a chance of your thinking me anything but a scoundrel.' She said, with a slight show of displeasure in her manner,--'I think there is no use in our trying to agree about this matter. I am exceedingly sorry if I have caused you pain. I never intended it; and I apologise most fully. Will you accept my apology, and let us change the subject? It distresses me.' She evidently felt uncomfortable. There was a faint flush on her cheek, and a dim dissatisfaction in her eyes. 'We cannot change the subject,' he said relentlessly, 'until we have decided whether you or I happen to be wrong.' 'I would rather admit I have been wrong than continue the topic. I assure you it gives me great pain.' 'I will be brief. When I said I knew you thought me a great fool, I did not believe what I said; I intended you should think I did believe it, and I said the words in order to give you pain.' She raised her eyes to his, and looked at him in silent wonder. 'Do you believe me now?' he asked. 'I do not know. You surprise me very much. Why should you try to pain me?' she asked, looking at him in perplexity. 'Because I wanted to try an experiment.' 'An experiment! What experiment? You are a strange man.' To the former look of perplexity had by this time been added a look of fear. 'I will not tell you now. But you see I am a scoundrel. Out of your own showing I am a scoundrel.' 'But you ought to tell me what this experiment is; and as to what I said about a man wilfully hurting and misleading, I meant that to apply to important things, to things of consequence only. What you said of me, and the little uncomfortableness I felt, are not worth a word, a thought.' 'It is only your goodness leads you to say so.' 'No, I am quite sincere.' 'Yes, your gentleness is always sincere.' She raised her eyes to him for a moment, and then dropped them, and kept them down. There was something in his look and manner that subdued her, surprised and silenced her. He went on,-- 'I do not agree with you at all, Miss Osborne, about these trifling annoyances to you being of no consequence. On the contrary, I think them of the greatest consequence. The difficulty you will have to solve is this: how is it that I, who look on any trifle which might annoy you as a thing of great consequence, should yet deliberately invent a means of rendering you seriously uncomfortable?' For a moment she looked up at him. All other expression but that of fear had now left her face. 'I--I don't know,' she said, with hesitating timidity. 'I merely wanted to try if I could interest you in any way. I wanted to find out if, by falsely attributing to you unfavourable opinions of myself, I could rouse any uneasiness in your mind. You think that very cruel no doubt.' 'I do not think you cruel.' 'Ah, that is not my question. Do not you think that cruel?' 'I really do not know. I am sure you would not be cruel to anyone.' 'No, not without a motive; and in the present case my motive was to find out if you could be hurt through me.' 'You have taken a great deal of trouble. I am sure what I could or could not feel is not worth while taking so much trouble about.' 'I know you do not mean that for satire.' 'No, no, no! I am quite in earnest. Please forgive me for any rash thing I may say. I am not clever, and often seem to mean what I do not want to say, what I do not mean.' 'Well,' he said, 'as you do not care to pursue the subject, we will drop it for the present.' 'Say for ever,' she cried, looking up pleadingly in his eyes. 'No, I cannot drop it for ever. I must speak to you of it again.' 'Why?' 'Because at some future time I intend asking you a question of an opposite character, and of ten thousand times more importance to me.' There was a long pause after this. He thought briefly, and with a self-congratulatory inward smile: 'If that does not puzzle and interest her, I know nothing about women.' She thought: 'I wish George would leave this place to-day. This man makes me most uncomfortable. I do not know what he means, and I don't see why he cannot let me alone. I shall avoid a tÊte-À-tÊte with him in future. What can the meaning be of all he said to me? Perhaps it is a scientific experiment of some kind; perhaps he wants to find out something about the human mind. I shouldn't mind it a bit if 'twas that. I wish George would take Marie and me down to Stratford to-morrow. I never met anyone like Mr Nevill before; he frightens me, and yet I am not afraid of him. I know he wouldn't do anything to hurt me, and yet he invented that story about my thinking him a fool. I don't think him a bit a fool; I think him very clever, like George, only his cleverness runs in a different way. I wonder what is this other thing he has to say to me; I wonder will he say it soon? I wish George would come back. How fond of George Marie must be! It must be very strange to be fond of any man not your brother. But Marie has no brother; she must be very fond of George, for she has no brother to divide her affection with. I wonder is she afraid of George, and does he set her riddles and tell her he'll ask her another question another day? I wonder is there any likelihood of George going home soon? He will go home at Easter, of course; but I mean before that.' Miss Osborne took up a book, and Nevill went to the piano and rattled off airs from comic operas, now and then addressing a word or two about music to Miss Osborne. He could play tolerably well any slap-dash music, but could not sing. The door opened, and a servant entered. 'Miss Gordon?' 'She is not here,' answered Kate. 'A gentleman wants to see her, miss, and I don't know where she is.' 'Have you tried the other rooms?' 'Yes, miss.' 'You'd better take the gentleman's name, and say she is out' 'When I asked him for his name to take up, he said she would not know it.' The servant shut the door. In a minute she returned and brought word the gentleman had gone, but would return in a little while. In the afternoon Marie and Osborne came back. Nevill was a little shy for a few minutes, but then turned the conversation in a new channel. He noticed something peculiar about the two. 'I can't make it out,' he thought, while Miss Gordon had gone to take off her hat and coat, and Osborne was speaking to his sister. 'I can't make it out. They went away looking anything but jolly. He looked worn and anxious, and she seemed disconcerted by his manner. They have been out an hour or two, and they come back as calm and collected as if they were brother and sister, not lovers. There is what I call a domestic look about them. Osborne appears as if he had nothing more important on his mind than the quarter's bills. I never saw so great a change in so short a time. By Jove! it can't be they have gone and got married on the quiet! No, no; Osborne isn't the man to do that.' In the meantime Osborne bent over his sister, and whispered in her ear,-- 'Kate, it is all settled between Marie and me. I shall write to mother this evening. I know you think I have done well.' 'I am sure of it, George. It will be very sudden and unexpected news for mother.' 'But don't you think when she sees and knows my Marie she will like her as you do?' 'I am quite sure of it, George. All I meant to say was that it will be a surprise. I am sure in the end she will like her. Who could help liking her?' 'Who could help it? as you say, Kate, dear. I think no man on earth could be happier than I am to-day.' The servant put in her head. 'Miss Gordon. A gentleman to see Miss Gordon.' 'She is in her own room,' answered Miss Osborne. A few minutes passed. The servant put in her head once more,-- 'Miss Gordon would be obliged if Miss Osborne would step into the parlour.' Kate rose. George bent over her, and whispered,-- 'You will kiss your new sister when you meet her?' 'Yes, George. I wish you all the happiness in the world, my dear good brother. You deserve it.' Miss Osborne left. Once more the servant entered the room. 'Miss Gordon begs Mr Osborne to come to the parlour.' 'She wishes to introduce me to her friend,' thought he, as he set out. When he reached the parlour there were four people in it. His sweetheart, his sister, and a man whose back was towards him. Osborne advanced with a cordial, open smile. Nothing could please him more than to meet a friend of hers on this great day. 'Allow me,' said his radiant sweetheart, 'to introduce to you Miss Osborne's brother. Mr Osborne--' She paused, and laughed a rich, full laugh. 'By-the-way, although you are so old a friend of mine as you say, I do not know your name.' The man turned round, and Osborne looked at him. With a cry he started back. 'I think I have seen your face before,' said the stranger. 'Yes,' whispered Osborne. 'Your name is Parkinson.' 'It is.' George raised his eyes, and fixed them with a wild look on Marie's face.