"I do not say so; but I do not wish to rob myself of the chance. It may be that I shall. Of course I should to-morrow if I thought there was a hope. To-morrow there would be none,—but I should like to know, that I could find her again in hands so friendly as yours, if at the end of a month I should think myself strong enough to encounter the risk of another refusal. Would Sir Harry allow her to remain here for another month?"
"He would say, probably, nothing about it."
"My plan is this," he continued; "let her remain here, say, for three weeks or a month. Do you continue all your kindness to her,—if not for her sake then for mine. Let her feel that she is made one of yourselves, as you say."
"That will be hard," said Lady Albury.
"It would not be hard if you thought that she was going to become so at last. Try it, for my sake. Say not a word to her about me,—though not shunning my name. Be to her as though I had told you nothing of this. Then when the period is over I will come again,—if I find that I can do so. If my love is still stronger than my sense of self-respect, I shall do so." All this Lady Albury promised to do, and then the interview between them was over.
"Colonel Stubbs is going to Aldershot to-morrow," said she to Ayala in the drawing-room after dinner. "He finds now that he cannot very well remain away." There was no hesitation in her voice as she said this, and no look in her eye which taught Ayala to suppose that she had heard anything of what had occurred in the wood.
"Is he indeed?" said Ayala, trying, but in vain, to be equally undemonstrative.
"It is a great trouble to us, but we are quite unable to prevent it,—unless you indeed can control him."
"I cannot control him," said Ayala, with that fixed look of resolution with which Lady Albury had already become familiar.
That evening before they went to bed the Colonel bade them all good-bye, as he intended to start early in the morning. "I never saw such a fellow as you are for sudden changes," said Sir Harry.