"I don't see it," replied Florence. Her answers were lame. Miss Melchister prepared herself for the fray.
"We will discuss the point," she said. "Now, why did you say—"
Trevor lingered near for a minute. He observed that Florence's cheeks had turned pale, and he thought that for such a clever girl she spoke in a rather ignorant way.
"How queer she is!" he said to himself; "but never mind, she will tell me all to-morrow. I shall win her; it will be my delight to guard her, to help her, and if necessary to save her. She is under someone's thumb; but I will find out whose."
His thoughts travelled to Bertha Keys. He remembered that strange time when he met Florence at the railway station at Hamslade. Why had she spent the day there? Why had Bertha sent her a parcel? He felt disturbed, and he wandered into another room. This was the library of the house. Some papers were lying about. Amongst others was the first number of the General Review. With a start Trevor took it up. He would look through Florence's article. That clever paper had been largely criticised already; but, strange to say, he had not read it. He sank into a chair and read it slowly over. As he did so, his heart beat at first loud, then with heavy throbs. A look of pain, perplexity, and weariness came into his eyes. One sentence in particular he read not only once, but twice, three times. It was a strange sentence; it contained in it the germ of a very poisonous thought. In these few words was the possibility of a faith being undermined, and a hope being destroyed. It puzzled him. He had the queer feeling that he had read it before. He repeated it to himself until he knew it by heart. Then he put the paper down, and soon afterwards he went to his mother, and told her he was going home.
"I will send a brougham for you; I am not very well," he said.
She looked into his face, and was distressed at the expression she saw in his eyes.
"All right, Maurice dear; I shall be ready in an hour. I just want to meet a certain old friend, and to talk to that pretty girl Miss Aylmer. I will find out why she does not come to see us."
"Don't worry her. I would rather you didn't," said Trevor.
His mother looked at him again, and her heart sank.