een that time and this, you will engage not to hold any
communication with my daughter?"

"I promise not, Mr. Sherwin--because I believe that your answer will be
favourable."

"Ah, well--well! lovers, they say, should never despair. A little
consideration, and a little talk with my dear girl--really now, won't
you change your mind and have a glass of sherry? (No again?) Very well,
then, the day after tomorrow, at five o'clock."

With a louder crack than ever, the brand-new drawing-room door was
opened to let me out. The noise was instantly succeeded by the rustling
of a silk dress, and the banging of another door, at the opposite end of
the passage. Had anybody been listening? Where was Margaret?

Mr. Sherwin stood at the garden-gate to watch my departure, and to make
his farewell bow. Thick as was the atmosphere of illusion in which I now
lived, I shuddered involuntarily as I returned his parting salute, and
thought of him as my father-in-law!

XI.

The nearer I approached to our own door, the more reluctance I felt to
pass the short interval between my first and second interview with Mr.
Sherwin, at home. When I entered the house, this reluctance increased to
something almost like dread. I felt unwilling and unfit to meet the eyes
of my nearest and dearest relatives. It was a relief to me to hear that
my father was not at home. My sister was in the house: the servant said
she had just gone into the library, and inquired whether he should tell
her that I had come in. I desired him not to disturb her, as it was my
intention to go out again immediately.

I went into my study, and wrote a short note there to Clara; merely
telling her that I should be absent in the country for two days. I had
sealed and laid it on the table for the servant to deliver, and was
about to leave the room, when I heard the library door open. I instantly
drew back, and half-closed my own door again. Clara had got the book she
wanted, and was taking it up to her own sitting-room. I waited till she
was out of sight, and then left the house. It was the first time I had
ever avoided my sister--my sister, who had never in her life asked a
question, or uttered a word that could annoy me; my sister, who had
confided all her own little secrets to my keeping, ever since we had
been children. As I thought on what I had done, I felt a sense of
humiliation which was almost punishment enough for the meanness of which
I had been guilty.

I went round