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time almost empty, and still he stood, his elbow resting on the mantelpiece, talking to Philippa, when the first couples began to come in from the dancing-room. Randulf Danesdale, with Lizzie, was the first to enter. Miss Vane was flushed; her hair had got a trifle disordered; she looked excited. She was now so far at her ease that she had begun to talk, and Randulf had been malign enough to draw her out a little. Her voice, with its unmistakably underbred and provincial accent, was heard, upraised; on this vision Bernard's eye rested, till he suddenly awoke to the consciousness of his duties, and going forward, offered Miss Vane his arın.

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With Del-" Aglionby had just ejaculated, electrified, for he had had no forewarning that any of the Conisbroughs were to be there. His glance followed Randulf's, and he had the sensation of starting violently. In reality he turned rather slowly and deliberately, and looked. His face changed. He bit his lips, and became a shade paler. Every pulse was beating wildly. He was in no state to ask himself what it meant. He watched, as if it had been some dissolving view, and saw how Miss Danesdale, with her prim little smile and her neat little steps, and her unimpeachable etiquette, went forward a little, with outstretched band, and greeted them. And while she spoke to Mrs. Malleson, Bernard's eyes looked clean over their heads, and met straightly those of Judith Conisbrough. Exactly the same sensation-only far more potent now-as that which had mastered him when he had taken leave of her at her mother's

house seized him—a strong, overwhelming thrill of delight and joy, such as no other being had ever awakened in him. And with it, yet more powerfully than before, he realized that not he alone experienced the sensation. He had the knowledge, intuitive, instinctive, triumphant, that she shared it to the full. He saw how, though she remained calm and composed, her bosom rose and fell with a long, deep inspiration; he saw her eyes change their expression-the shock first, the light that filled them afterward, and-most eloquent, most intoxicating of all-their final sinking before his long gaze. He lived through a thousand changing phases of emotion while he stood still there, looking at her; he realized with passionate delight that it was not only he who found her beautiful, but all others who had eyes to see. None could deny that she was beautiful : her outward form did but express her inner soul. A man behind him murmured to another, and Bernard heard him:

"Jove, what splendid-looking girls! Who are they? Are they from your part of the country too?"

He watched while the two girls shook hands with Miss Danesdale. He saw Randulf go up to them and greet them, and how the first expression of pleasure which had crossed their faces appeared there. Randulf's dream was going to be realized, Bernard reflected, with wild envy. He could arrange things pretty much according to his own pleasure. Delphine had kept him waiting, as he said; so much the oftener would he make her dance with him now that at last she was there.

Then Aglionby became feebly conscious that his arm was somewhat roughly jogged, and that a voice which he seemed to have heard fifty years ago sounded in his ear:

"Bernard, are you dreaming? Here's a lady speaking to you.'

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With a veritable start this time he came to his senses, and beheld Mrs. Malleson, in black tulle and gloire de Dijon roses, holding out a hand to him, and smiling in friendly wise.

"

Mrs. Malleson, I-you are late, surely, are you not?''

We are, I believe, and I am afraid it is my fault. I hope the men are not

all so deeply engaged that the Misses Conisbrough will get no dances.

Here some one came and said to Lizzie that he thought it was their dance. Nothing loth, she suffered herself to be led away.

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That is Miss Vane, I know," observed Mrs. Malleson. You must introduce her later. She is wonderfully pretty.

She was in her turn monopolized and led away. Aglionby could not have replied had she remained. If he had never known, or never admitted the truth to himself until now, at last it overwhelmed him. Lizzie Vane beautiful! Lizzie Vane beloved by him!

It was like awakening from some ghastly dream, to be confronted by a yet more horrible reality. He mechanically passed his hand over his eyes and shivered. When he looked round again he saw that Judith was standing alone. Philippa was receiving some very late guests. Delphine had been led away, so had Mrs. Malleson. Several groups were in the room, but both he and Judith were emphatically alone--outside them all. Presently he found himself by her side as how should he not? There was no one else there, so far as he knew. On a desert island even enemies become reconciled.

"I hope you have not quite forgotten me, Miss Conisbrough.'

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His voice was low, and there was no smile on his face, any more than there was on hers. With both of them it was far too deadly earnest to permit of smiles or jests.

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'It would imply an unpardonably short memory on my part, if I had, she answered very gravely, and looking more majestic than ever. He felt her gloved hand within his, and for a blessed moment or two he forgot Lizzie Vane's very existence. With the actual touch of her hand, with the sound of her pathetic contralto voice, the spell rushed blindingly over him. How had he lived. How had he lived out these weeks since he parted from her? How had he been able to think it all over, as he had done again and again, calmly and without any particular emotion? In one of Terguéneff's novels he relates the story of a Russian peasant woman, whose only and adored son is suddenly killed. A visitor, call

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ing a week or so later, finds the woman, to his surprise, calm, collected, and even cheerful. Laissez la," observed the husband, elle est fossilée !" Now Bernard knew that was exactly what he had been-fossilized; unrealizing what had happened to him. For him as for that peasant woman the day of awakening had dawned.

He allowed his eyes and his voice to tell Judith that in finding her to-night he had found that which he most desired to see. He allowed his eyes and his voice also to question her eyes and her voice, and in their very hesitation, in their reply, in their very trouble, their abashed quietness, he read the answer he wished for. She had not escaped unscathed from the ordeal which had been too much for him. Twice already to-night he had asked her this question, and had heard this answer-Inerely with look and tone-without any word whatever, and he wanted to ask it again and again, and to have her answer it as often as he asked it. She was standing, so was he. That last long look was hardly over, when he offered her his arm, and said:

'You are not dancing; come to the sofa and sit down."

She complied; mechanically she sat down, and he beside her; he put his arm over the back of the sofa; she was leaning back, and the lace ruffle of her dress just touched his wrist, and the contact made his blood run faster.

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"No."

No. Therefore I claim my reward now. We are in society to-night. It is the time when we are allowed by your own law to be on friendly terms, and I mean to take advantage of the fact. Will you grant me a favor? Will you let me take you in to supper?"

Judith, in her simplicity and surprise, was quite bewildered, and felt distracted how to act. Evidently he had not given up, and did not intend to give up, any scrap of a friendly or cousinly privilege which might be open to him. If her secret in the back ground had been less terrible and (to her) tragic, she would have been amused at Aglionby's determination not to be set aside. As it was, she replied at last gently:

"

Don't you think there is another lady whom you ought rather to take in to supper

He opened his eyes as if not understanding, then remarked:

Do not

Oh, you mean Miss Vane. imagine that I am neglecting her. Her partner at the supper-table is already selected. She told me so herself. She is to dance an extra,' I think she called it, before supper, or after, I forget which-but with some man who is to take her in to that repast. Therefore, may I hope for the pleasure? To confound the politics of the assembled multitude, if for no other reason," he added. They are sure to look for signs of enmity between us, and I should like to disconcert them."

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Very well, if you wish it," said Judith gravely, "and if I must go into supper, as I suppose I must.

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I'm afraid you have not looked forward with any enjoyment to this ball?" "Enjoyment?" echoed Judith drearily; and added, half forgetting the terms she had herself laid down, "Do not think it very strange that Delphine and I should be here. Mamma insisted, and we dared not thwart her. You do not know how unwilling we were, and how it has troubled us.

"I know what it must feel like to you, " he said; and was going to say more. He was going to say that though he knew what it had cost her, yet that he was not altogether sorry, since it had brought them together, and she would not allow any other kind of intercourse.

But just at that moment Sir Gabriel, whom Judith had not yet spoken to, arrived upon the scene. Sir Gabriel had received an inkling of the truth from his son, who had had it from Mrs. Malleson. Randulf had hastily confided it to Sir Gabriel:

"I wish you'd pay a little attention to the Misses Conisbrough, sir. They didn't want to come a bit-to meet Aglionby, you know, and not three months since their uncle's death; but their mother made them, and they dared not cross her- so if you wouldn't

mind—

De

The hint was more than enough for the warm-hearted old gentleman. spite his real liking for Aglionby, he had never ceased to shake his head over the will, and to think that Mrs. Conisbrough and those girls had been very badly used. He had just had Delphine introduced to him in the ball-room, and now he had made his way to Judith.

"Miss Conisbrough, I'm delighted to see you here! I have just been talking to your sister, who is the loveliest creature I've seen for twenty years and more. I may say that to you, you know. If she doesn't turn some heads to-night, why, they are not the same kind of heads that used to be on men's shoulders in my days."

Judith's face flushed. She smiled a pleased yet nervous smile. Yes, Delphine was all that the good old man called her, and how delightful this sweet incense of justice, not flattery, would have been-how grateful, if—if onlyShe crushed down a desire to laugh, or cry, she knew not which-an hysteric feeling — and answered Sir Gabriel politely, but, as he thought, a little indifferently. But, remembering his son's words, he stood talking to her for some time, and finally offered her his arm to take her to the ball-room and dance a quadrille with her. Aglionby went with them at the same time. So long as he did not exceed the bounds of politeness, he told himself-so long as his outward conduct could be denominated "friendly"-he shook his head back-he would not turn himself into a conventional machine to say, How do you do ?'' Good evening," and no

more.

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As they entered the ball room, they

were confronted by Miss Vane, more flushed now, more at her ease, and armin-arm with a youth who had been introduced to her as Lord Charles Startforth, and who would by his title alone have fulfilled, to her mind, every requisite necessary to the constitution of a 66 real swell!" She saw Bernard, Sir Gabriel, and Judith enter, and at once inquired of her partner :

Eh, I say, isn't that Sir Gabriel ?" "That is Sir Gabriel," replied the young gentleman, with sang froid. He had found Miss Vane and her provincialisms a source of the most exquisite entertainment.

"I thought so. Ah, there is my beloved with him."

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saw her led off time after time, and congratulated himself on having secured her promise concerning supper.

As for Delphine, she had not been in the drawing-room after the first five minutes following her arrival. Judith purposely avoided noticing her. She had a vague consciousness that she was dancing a good deal with Kandulf Danesdale, and while her reason condemned her heart condoned, and even sympathized with the imprudence. Even she herself, after a time, fell into the spirit of the dance, and began to rejoice in the mere pleasure of the swift rhythmic motion. Though calm and cool outwardly, she was wrought up to a pitch of almost feverish excitement, and, as is often the case with excitement of that kind, she was able distinctly and vividly to note every small circumstance connected with the course of the evening. She remembered her mother's words, 'they shall see who it is that has been passed over," and she could not but perceive that both she and her sister attracted a great deal of attention; that men were led up and introduced to them oftener, on the whole, than they were to other girls-that, in fact, they created a sensation-were a success. She supposed, then, that her mother was right. If they had had that "position" which she so coveted for them, they would not be counted nonentities in it.

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Judith also saw, with a woman's quickness in such matters, that which poor Bernard never perceived, the fact, namely, that though Lizzie Vane got plenty of partners, and was apparently made much of, yet that many of her partners were laughing at her, and drawing her out, and that they laughed together about her afterward; and lastly most significant -most significant fact of all-that scarce a woman noticed or spoke to her, except Miss Danesdale, who, as hostess, was in a measure obliged to do

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He smiled, but said little more during the meal. The supper was served in brilliant fashion in an enormous room, at numbers of smallish round tables. Those who had time and attention to spare for the arrangements said it was a fairy scene, with its evergreens, its hothouse flowers, and delicate ferns and perfumed fountains. Judith and Aglionby saw nothing of that; they forced some kind of an indifferent conversation, for under the eyes of that crowd, and surrounded by those brilliant lights, anything like confidential behavior was impossible. Now and then they were greeted by shouts of especially loud laughter from another part of the room, elicited by some peculiarly piquant sally of Miss Vane's, which charmed the chorus of men around her, and gave a deeper flush of triumph to her cheeks.

Just as the noise and laughter were at their height, and the fun was becoming faster, Aglionby said to Judith:

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Let us go away. This isn't amusing."

They rose. So did nearly every one else at the same time, but not to go. Some one had said something, which Judith and Aglionby absorbed in themselves had not heard, and a dead silence succeeded to the tumultuous noise. Then a clock was heard striking-a deeptoned stroke, which fell twelve times, and upon the last sound the storm of laughter broke loose, and a tempest of hand-shaking and congratulations broke

out.

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supper. They, too, left the room, and seated themselves, after wandering about a little, in a kind of alcove with a cushioned seat, of which there were many in the hall. Then-for they were as much alone as if not another creature had been near them-Aglionby at once resumed the topic he had been dwelling on all supper-time.

You have never been near Scar Foot since that day. That means that you are still relentless?" said he, regarding her steadily, but with entreaty in his eyes, and a decided accent of the same kind in his voice.

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Why-why do you say such things? What makes you think so?" she asked tremulously.

Aglionby took her fan, and bent toward her, as if fanning her with it; but while his hand moved regularly and steadily to and fro, he spoke to her with all the earnestness of which he was capable, and with eyes which seemed to burn into hers yet with a tenderness in his voice which he could not subdue.

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Because you do not trust me. cause you will not believe what to me is so simple and such a matter of course-that no reason you could assert could make me your enemy. Because there is no offence I would not condone. Pah! Condone ?-forgive, forget, wipe clean away, to have the goodwill and the friendship of you and yours. Now do you understand?"

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