'He is not—he is not!' she said passionately; and her cheeks were white; but there was something grasping her heart, and like to suffocate her, so that she could not protest more.
'Anyway, I will take care that I shall have nothing to do with it,' the elder sister continued; 'and if you should see him again before you go, I would advise you to bid him good-bye, for it will be the last time. Mother will take care of that, or I am mistaken.'
She left the room; and the girl remained alone—proud and pale and rebellious; but still with this dreadful weight upon her heart, of despair and fear that she would not acknowledge. If only she could see Ronald! One word from him—one look—would be enough. But if this were true?—if she were never to be allowed to hear from him again?—they might even appeal to himself, and who could say what promise they might not extract from him, if they were sufficiently cunning of approach? They might say it was for her welfare—they might appeal to his honour—they might win some pledge from him—and she knowing nothing of it all! If only she could see him for one moment! The very pulses of her blood seemed to keep repeating his name at every throb—yearning towards him, as it were; and at last she threw herself down on the sofa and buried her head in the cushion, and burst into a wild and long-continued fit of weeping and sobbing. But this in time lightened the weight at her heart, at any rate; and when at length she rose—with tear-stained cheeks and tremulous lips and dishevelled hair—there was still something in her look that showed that the courage with which she had faced her sister was not altogether gone; and soon the lips had less of tremulousness about them than of a proud decision; and there was that in the very calmness of her demeanour that would have warned all whom it might concern that the days of her placid and obedient girlhood were over.
CHAPTER IX.
IN OTHER CLIMES.
Never was there a gayer party than this that was walking from the hotel towards the shores of Lake George, on a brilliant and blue-skied October morning. Perhaps the most demure—or the most professedly demure—was Miss Carry Hodson herself, who affected to walk apart a little; and swung carelessly the fur cape she carried in her hand; and refused all kinds of attentions from a tall, lank, long-haired young man who humbly followed her; and pretended that she was wholly engrossed with the air of
'I'm in love, sweet Mistress Prue,
Sooth I can't conceal it;
My poor heart is broke in two—-
You alone can heal it.'