"How can you care so much for that cold, unsympathetic woman?" Menteith exclaimed.
"She is not cold and unsympathetic," Edith rejoined emphatically. "I am afraid there is something wrong. I must go and see what it is. O Mosley! I feel all chilled! It is a bad omen!"
"This is a bad damp hall," he answered, laughing at her, "you are too sensitive to changes of temperature."
It seemed so really, for her colour had faded, and she had not recovered it when she appeared in the drawing room.
Evadne was standing in the middle of the room alone, waiting for her.
"Edith! You are not going to marry that dreadful man?" she exclaimed.
Edith stopped short, astonished.
"Dreadful man!" she gasped. "Yon must be mad, Evadne!"
Mrs. Beale came into the room just as Edith uttered these words, and overheard them. She had been on the point of happy smiles and tears, expecting kind congratulations, but at the tone of Edith's voice almost more than at what she had said, and at the sight of the two girls standing a little apart looking into each other's faces in alarm and horror, her own countenance changed, and an expression of blank inquiry succeeded the smiles, and dried the tears.
"Oh, Mrs. Beale!" Evadne entreated; "you are not going to let Edith marry that dreadful man!"