put your foot into it
if you intermeddle. These girls are always worrying people about their
sweethearts--all but Nan. I wish to goodness they were all married; my
life is made a burden to me amongst them.'

'But what do you think, Beresford? Haven't you any opinion? What
would you do in a similar case?'

'I?' said Mr. Tom, with a laugh, 'I suppose I should ask the girl; and
if she didn't like to say yes, she could do the other thing.'

'But--do you think there would be a chance?'

'Write and see,' said Mr. Tom, with another laugh; further than that he
would not interfere.

Frank King considered for a time; and at last boldly determined to act
on this advice. He sat up late that night, concocting a skilful,
cautious, appealing letter; and as he re-wrote it carefully, all by
himself, in the silence, it seemed to him almost as if he were
beseeching Nan to reconsider the verdict she had given at Bellagio more
than three years before. Life would begin all over again if only she
would say yes. Sometimes he found himself thinking of that ball in
Spring Gardens; and of her startled shyness, and of her winning
confidence, and anxious wish to please; until he recollected that it
was Madge to whom he was writing, and that Madge had never been to the
ball at all.

This fateful missive was left to be despatched the first thing in the
morning; and at the very least there must needs be two or three days'
interval. But it cannot be said that he passed this time in terrible
anxiety. He was secretly hopeful; so much so that he had begged Mr.
Tom, who ought to have gone back before this time, to wait another day
or so. His private reason was that he hoped to accompany Madge's
brother to Brighton.

All the same, the crisis of a man's life cannot approach without
causing some mental disturbance, even in the most hopeful. Long before
the Kingscourt family had assembled round the breakfast-table, Frank
King had ridden over, on these two or three cold mornings, to the
postal town, which was nearly two miles off, so that he should not have
to wait for the arrival of the bag. And at last came a letter with the
Brighton postmark. He glanced at the handwriting, and thought it was
Madge's. That was enough. He put it in his pocket without opening it;
went out and got on his horse; and went well outside the little town
into the quietude of the lanes before putting his hand into his pocket
again and taking the letter out.