out worse to you than to any one else, because I want our
minds to be united.'

'Give me a respite now and then.'

'With all my heart. And forgive me for beating my drum. I see what others
don't see, or else I feel it more; I don't know; but it appears to me our
country needs rousing if it's to live. There 's a division between poor
and rich that you have no conception of, and it can't safely be left
unnoticed. I've done.'

He looked at her and saw tears on her under-lids.

'My dearest Cecilia!'

'Music makes me childish,' said she.

Her father was approaching in the boat. Beside him sat the Earl of
Lockrace, latterly classed among the suitors of the lady of Mount
Laurels.

A few minutes remained to Beauchamp of his lost opportunity. Instead of
seizing them with his usual promptitude, he let them slip, painfully
mindful of his treatment of her last year after the drive into Bevisham,
when she was England, and Renee holiday France.

This feeling he fervently translated into the reflection that the bride
who would bring him beauty and wealth, and her especial gift of tender
womanliness, was not yet so thoroughly mastered as to grant her husband
his just prevalence with her, or even indeed his complete independence of
action, without which life itself was not desireable.

Colonel Halkett stared at Beauchamp as if he had risen from the deep.

'Have you been in that town this morning?' was one of his first questions
to him when he stood on board.

'I came through it,' said Beauchamp, and pointed to his little cutter
labouring in the distance. 'She's mine for a month; I came from
Holdesbury to try her; and then he stated how he had danced attendance on
the schooner for a couple of hours before any notice was taken of him,
and Cecilia with her graceful humour held up his presumption to scorn.

Her father was eyeing Beauchamp narrowly, and appeared troubled.

'Did you see Mr. Romfrey yesterday, or this morning?' the colonel asked
him, mentioning that Mr. Romfrey had been somewhere about the island
yesterday, at which Beauchamp expressed astonishment, for his uncle
Everard seldom visited a yachting station.

Colonel Halkett exchanged looks with Cecilia. Hers were inquiring, and he
confirmed her side-glance at Beauchamp. She raised her brows; he nodded,
to signify that there was gravity in the case. Here the signalling
stopped short; she had to carry on a conversation with Lord Lockrace, one
of those men who bet