lded from the outer world by the illness which was impending when
Maud described it as a chill contracted by going out in the damp, and
the event which followed was generally accredited with developing the
chill into something more serious,--but although Sue was obliged to ask
a month's grace from Mr. Anthony Boldero, in order that her sister might
be sufficiently recovered to run no risk from moving--(a request which
he had sufficient goodness of heart to ignore when alleging that he had
had no trouble about family arrangements)--Leo was now well enough to
have no excuse for evading a farewell scene.

In respect to Maud she knew not what to think. Had any hint or rumour of
the truth ever reached her, or could it have been mere coincidence that
caused her flight to follow Paul's confession almost on the instant?

Had Paul's vaunted inflexibility broken down? Had he reconsidered his
resolution?

Yet, if so, this must have become known; it was impossible that it
should have been kept secret; and he, not Maud would have been accounted
guilty.

"Where is Paul? What is Paul doing?" The faint bleat of a weak and
wounded creature came incessantly from Leonore's pillow, all through the
first long day that followed the _esclandre_. They hid it from her that
Paul had gone.

Sue and Sybil would fain have kept him, yearning to breathe forth
contrition and sympathy every hour, every moment--but he could not be
prevailed upon. They thought he was too deeply hurt, too cruelly
affronted,--and they thought they would not tell Leo.

It was all so inexplicable that even the very servants who know us,
their masters and mistresses, better than we know each other, could draw
no conclusions, and the prevailing amazement downstairs found vent in
ejaculations of "Miss Maud! Miss Maud of all people! Now if it had been
Leonore"--but the speaker, a pert young thing, was sharply called to
order for impudence--"'Mrs. Stubbs' then,--the name ain't so pretty she
need have it always tagged on to her"--with a giggle--"she's got it in
her to run away with any number of 'em, _she_ has. And Val was her one,
Mary and me thought. But, Lor, it's looks that tells: and pretty as she
is, Leonore--Mrs. Stubbs," giggling again, "can't stand up to her that's
Mrs. Val now. See her in her weddin' dress--my! We little thought she
wasn't never to put it on in earnest, when we was let to have a sight of
her that day it come home. A real treat it was!"

Maud's fi