s," said Lady Gore lightly, to give Rendel time, "one always holds
one's political adversary responsible for anything that happens to
displease one in the conduct of the universe."

"I hope," said Rendel, trying to hide his real anxiety, "that Sir
William will try to forgive me for the action of my party, and
everything else. Pray feel kindly towards me to-day."

Sir William looked at him inquiringly, affecting perhaps a more
unsuspecting innocence than he was feeling. Rendel went on, speaking
quickly and feeling suddenly unaccountably nervous.

"I have come here to tell you--to ask you----" He stopped, then went on
abruptly, "This morning, at Maidenhead, I asked your daughter to marry
me."

"What, already?" said Sir William involuntarily. "That was very prompt.
And what did she say?"

"She said it was impossible," Rendel answered, encouraged more by
Gore's manner and his general reception of the news than by his actual
words.

"Impossible, did she say?" said Sir William. "And what did you say to
that?"

"That I should come here this afternoon," Rendel replied.

Sir William smiled.

"That was prompter still," he said. "It looks as if you knew your own
mind at any rate."

"I do indeed, if ever a man did," said Rendel confidently. "And I really
do believe that it was because she was a good daughter she said it was
impossible."

"Well, if it was, that's the kind that often makes an uncommonly good
wife," Sir William said.

"I don't doubt it," Rendel said, with conviction. "And I feel that if
only you and Lady Gore----"

He stopped, as the door opened gently, and Rachel appeared, in a fresh
white summer gown. She stood looking from one to the other, arrested on
the threshold by that strange consciousness of being under discussion
which is transmitted to one as through a material medium. Then what
seemed to her the full horror of being so discussed swept over her. Was
it possible that already the beautiful dream that had surrounded her,
that wonderful secret that she had hardly yet whispered to herself, was
having the light of day let in upon it, was being handled, discussed, as
though it were possible that others might share in it too?

Rendel read in her face what she was going through. He went forward
quickly to meet her.

"I am afraid," he said, putting his thoughts into words more literally
than he meant, "that I have come too soon. I hope you will forgive me?"

"It is rather soon," Rachel answered