of course before her time. It is
the privilege of unmarried ladies when they travel alone to spend
a good deal of time at stations. But as she walked up and down the
platform she had an opportunity for settling her thoughts. She was
angry with three persons--with Mrs. Western, Mr. Western, and with
herself. She was very angry with Cecilia. Had Cecilia trusted to her
properly she could have sympathised with her thoroughly in all her
troubles. She was not angry with her friend in that her friend was
afraid of her husband. Would she have reposed herself and her fears
on her friend's bosom it might have been very well. But it was
because her friend had not been afraid of her that she was wrath.
Mrs. Western had misbehaved egregiously, and had come to her in
her trouble solely because it was necessary. So far she had done
naturally. But though she had come, she had not come in any of the
spirit of humility. She had been bold as brass to her in the midst
of her cowardice towards her husband,--imperious to herself and
unbending. She had declined her advice with scorn. And yet one word
spoken by herself would have been destructive. Seeing that she had
been so treated had she not been wrong to abstain from the word?

Her anger against Mr. Western was less hot in its nature but was
still constant. He had not liked her, and though he had been formally
civil, his dislike had been apparent. He was a man proud of himself,
who ought to be punished for his pride. It was quite proper that he
should learn that his wife had been engaged to the man whom he had
so violently despised. It would be no more than a fitting reverse of
fortune. Mr. Western was, she thought, no better than other men, and
ought to be made so to understand. She had not quite arranged in her
mind what she could now do in the matter, but for "dear Cecilia's"
sake she was sure that something must be done.

And she was angry with herself at allowing herself to be turned out
of the house before the crisis had come. She felt that she ought to
have been present at the crisis, and that by the exercise of her own
powers she might have hurried on the crisis. In this respect she was
by no means satisfied with herself.

She was walking up and down the platform of the little country
station thinking of all this when on a sudden she saw Sir Francis
Geraldine get out of a brougham. It cannot be explained why her heart
throbbed when she saw Sir Francis get out of his brougham. It