rtment, and spun my hat on the table. "She has been
out two seasons, and is no longer the same person. Yet how lovely she has
grown! But why this change--and why was Harcourt there? Could he have
prejudiced them against me? Very possibly." While these ideas were
running in my mind, and I was making comparisons between Cecilia de
Clare and Susannah Temple--not much in favour of the former--and looking
forward prospectively to the meeting with my father, the doubts as to my
reception in society colouring everything with the most sombre tints, the
door opened, and in walked Harcourt, announced by the waiter.

"A chair for Mr Harcourt," said I to the waiter, with formality.

"Newland," said Harcourt, "I come for two reasons: in the first place,
I am commissioned by the ladies, to assure you--"

"I beg your pardon, Mr Harcourt, for interrupting you, but I require no
ambassador from the ladies in question. They may make you their
confidant if they please, but I am not at all inclined to do the same.
Explanation, after what I witnessed and felt this morning, is quite
unnecessary. I surrender all claims upon either Lady de Clare or her
daughter, if I ever was so foolhardy as to imagine that I had any. The
first reason of your visit it is therefore useless to proceed with. May
I ask the other reason which has procured me this honour?"

"I hardly know, Mr Newland," replied Harcourt, colouring deeply,
"whether, after what you have now said, I ought to proceed with the
second--it related to myself."

"I am all attention, Mr Harcourt," replied I, bowing politely.

"It was to say, Mr Newland, that I should have taken the earliest
opportunity after my recovery, had you not disappeared so strangely, to
have expressed my sorrow for my conduct towards you, and to have
acknowledged that I had been deservedly punished: more perhaps by my own
feelings of remorse, than by the dangerous wound I had received by your
hand. I take even this opportunity, although not apparently a favourable
one, of expressing what I consider it my duty, as a gentleman who has
wronged another, to express. I certainly was going to add more, but there
is so little chance of its being well received, that I had better defer it
to some future opportunity. The time may come, and I certainly trust it
will come, when I may be allowed to prove to you that I am not deserving
of the coolness with which I am now received. Mr Newland, with every wish
for your happiness, I