ctor broke in: 'I see her wish: I will.'

The clash of his answer rang beside Dr. Themison's faltering query.

We are grateful when spared the conclusion of a sentence born to stammer.
If for that only, the doctor pressed Victor's hand warmly.

'I may, then, convey some form of assurance, that a request of the kind
will be granted?' he said.

'She has but to call me to her,' said Victor, stiffening his back.

CHAPTER XX

THE GREAT ASSEMBLY AT LAKELANDS

Round the neighbourhood of Lakelands it was known that the day of the
great gathering there had been authoritatively foretold as fine, by Mr.
Victor Radnor; and he delivered his prophecy in the teeth of the
South-western gale familiar to our yachting month; and he really inspired
belief or a kind of trust; some supposing him to draw from reserves of
observation, some choosing to confide in the singularly winged sparkle of
his eyes. Lady Rodwell Blachington did; and young Mrs. Blathenoy; and
Mrs. Fanning; they were enamoured of it. And when women stand for Hope,
and any worshipped man for Promise, nothing less than redoubled confusion
of him dissolves the union. Even then they cling to it, under an
ejaculation, that it might and should have been otherwise; fancy partly
has it otherwise, in her caerulean home above the weeping. So it is good
at all points to prophecy with the aspect of the radiant day foretold.

A storm, bearing battle overhead, tore the night to pieces. Nataly's
faith in the pleasant prognostic wavered beneath the crashes. She had not
much power of heart to desire anything save that which her bosom
disavowed. Uproar rather appeased her, calmness agitated. She wished her
beloved to be spared from a disappointment, thinking he deserved all
successes, because of the rigours inflicted by her present tonelessness
of blood and being. Her unresponsive manner with him was not due to lack
of fire in the blood or a loss of tenderness. The tender feeling, under
privations unwillingly imposed, though willingly shared, now suffused her
reflections, owing to a gratitude induced by a novel experience of him;
known, as it may chance, and as it does not always chance, to both sexes
in wedded intimacy here and there; known to women whose mates are proved
quick to compliance with delicate intuitions of their moods of nature. A
constant, almost visible, image of the dark thing she desired, and was
bound not to desire, and was remorseful for desiring, oppressed h