rriage he spoke
with such tender feeling, he managed his hold on my inexperience so
delicately, that he entrapped me into saying some words, on my side,
which I remembered with a certain dismay as soon as I was left alone
again. In half an hour more, Mr. Lionel Varleigh was announced as my
next visitor. I at once noticed a certain disturbance in his look and
manner which was quite new in my experience of him. I offered him a
chair. To my surprise he declined to take it.

"I must trust to your indulgence to permit me to put an embarrassing
question to you," he began. "It rests with you, Miss Laroche, to decide
whether I shall remain here, or whether I shall relieve you of my
presence by leaving the room."

"What can you possibly mean?" I asked.

"Is it your wish," he went on, "that I should pay you no more visits
except in Captain Stanwick's company, or by Captain Stanwick's express
permission?"

My astonishment deprived me for the moment of the power of answering
him. "Do you really mean that Captain Stanwick has forbidden you to call
on me?" I asked as soon as I could speak.

"I have exactly repeated what Captain Stanwick said to me half an hour
since," Lionel Varleigh answered.

In my indignation at hearing this, I entirely forgot the rash words of
encouragement which the Captain had entrapped me into speaking to him.
When I think of it now, I am ashamed to repeat the language in which I
resented this man's presumptuous assertion of authority over me. Having
committed one act of indiscretion already, my anxiety to assert my
freedom of action hurried me into committing another. I bade Mr.
Varleigh welcome whenever he chose to visit me, in terms which made
his face flush under the emotions of pleasure and surprise which I had
aroused in him. My wounded vanity acknowledged no restraints. I signed
to him to take a seat on the sofa at my side; I engaged to go to
his lodgings the next day, with my aunt, and see the collection of
curiosities which he had amassed in the course of his travels. I almost
believe, if he had tried to kiss me, that I was angry enough with the
Captain to have let him do it!

Remember what my life had been--remember how ignorantly I had passed the
precious days of my youth, how insidiously a sudden accession of wealth
and importance had encouraged my folly and my pride--and try, like good
Christians, to make some allowance for me!

My aunt came in from her walk, before Mr. Varleigh's visit