TOM went away the next morning. He declined to see Jessie again, saying curtly, “I don’t wish the impression made on me the other evening to incur a chance of being weakened.”

Kenelm was in no mood to regret his friend’s departure. Despite all the improvement in Tom’s manners and culture, which raised him so much nearer to equality with the polite and instructed heir of the Chillinglys, Kenelm would have felt more in sympathy and rapport with the old disconsolate fellow-wanderer who had reclined with him on the grass, listening to the minstrel’s talk or verse, than he did with the practical, rising citizen of Luscombe. To the young lover of Lily Mordaunt there was a discord, a jar, in the knowledge that the human heart admits of such well-reasoned, well-justified transfers of allegiance; a Jessie to-day, or an Emily to-morrow; “La reine est morte: vive la reine”

An hour or two after Tom had gone, Kenelm found himself almost mechanically led towards Braefieldville. He had instinctively divined Elsie’s secret wish with regard to himself and Lily, however skilfully she thought she had concealed it.

At Braefieldville he should hear talk of Lily, and in the scenes where Lily had been first beheld.

He found Mrs. Braefield alone in the drawing-room, seated by a table covered with flowers, which she was assorting and intermixing for the vases to which they were destined.

It struck him that her manner was more reserved than usual and somewhat embarrassed; and when, after a few preliminary matters of small talk, he rushed boldly in medias res and asked if she had seen Mrs. Cameron lately, she replied briefly, “Yes, I called there the other day,” and immediately changed the conversation to the troubled state of the Continent.

Kenelm was resolved not to be so put off, and presently returned to the charge.

“The other day you proposed an excursion to the site of the Roman villa, and said you would ask Mrs. Cameron to be of the party. Perhaps you have forgotten it?”

“No; but Mrs. Cameron declines. We can ask the Emlyns instead. He will be an excellent cicerone.”

“Excellent! Why did Mrs. Cameron decline?”

Elsie hesitated, and then lifted her clear brown eyes to his face, with a sudden determination to bring matters to a crisis.

“I cannot say why Mrs. Cameron declined, but in declining she acted very wisely and very honourably. Listen to me, Mr. Chillingly. You know how highly I esteem, and how cordially I like you, and judging by what I felt for some weeks, perhaps longer, after we parted at Tor Hadham—” Here again she hesitated, and, with a half laugh and a slight blush, again went resolutely on. “If I were Lily’s aunt or elder sister, I should do as Mrs. Cameron does; decline to let Lily see much more of a young gentleman too much above her in wealth and station for—”

“Stop,” cried Kenelm, haughtily, “I cannot allow that any man’s wealth or station would warrant his presumption in thinking himself above Miss Mordaunt.”

“Above her in natural grace and refinement, certainly not. But in the world there are other considerations which, perhaps, Sir Peter and Lady Chillingly might take into account.”

“You did not think of that before you last saw Mrs. Cameron.”

“Honestly speaking, I did not. Assured that Miss Mordaunt was a gentlewoman by birth, I did not sufficiently reflect upon other disparities.”

“You know, then, that she is by birth a gentlewoman?”

“I only know it as all here do, by the assurance of Mrs. Cameron, whom no one could suppose not to be a lady. But there are different degrees of lady and of gentleman, which are little heeded in the ordinary intercourse of society, but become very perceptible in questions of matrimonial alliance; and Mrs. Cameron herself says very plainly that she does not consider her niece to belong to that station in life from which Sir Peter and Lady Chillingly would naturally wish their son should select his bride. Then (holding out her hand) pardon me if I have wounded or offended you. I speak as a true friend to you and to Lily both. Earnestly I advise you, if Miss Mordaunt be the cause of your lingering here, earnestly I advise you to leave while yet in time for her peace of mind and your own.”

“Her peace of mind,” said Kenelm, in low faltering tones, scarcely hearing the rest of Mrs. Braefield’s speech. “Her peace of mind? Do you sincerely think that she cares for me,—could care for me,—if I stayed?”

“I wish I could answer you decidedly. I am not in the secrets of her heart. I can but conjecture that it might be dangerous for the peace of any young girl to see too much of a man like yourself, to divine that he loved her, and not to be aware that he could not, with the approval of his family, ask her to become his wife.”

Kenelm bent his face down, and covered it with his right hand. He did not speak for some moments. Then he rose, the fresh cheek very pale, and said,—

“You are right. Miss Mordaunt’s peace of mind must be the first consideration. Excuse me if I quit you thus abruptly. You have given me much to think of, and I can only think of it adequately when alone.”