that?" Her face was not turned to him, and her words
were half-pronounced, and in the lowest whisper, but, nevertheless,
he heard them.

"Come with me,--abroad, and you shall yet be my wife. You got my
letter? Do what I asked you, then. Come with me--to-night."

The pressing instance of the suggestion, the fixing of a present
hour, startled her back to her propriety. "Mr Fitzgerald," she said,
"I asked you to go and leave me. If you do not do so, I must get up
and leave you. It will be much more difficult."

"And is that to be all?"

"All;--at any rate, now." Oh, Glencora! how could you be so weak? Why
did you add that word, "now"? In truth, she added it then, at that
moment, simply feeling that she could thus best secure an immediate
compliance with her request.

"I will not go," he said, looking at her sternly, and leaning before
her, with earnest face, with utter indifference as to the eyes of any
that might see them. "I will not go till you tell me that you will
see me again."

"I will," she said in that low, all-but-unuttered whisper.

"When,--when,--when?" he asked.

Looking up again towards the doorway, in fear of Mr Bott's eyes, she
saw the face of Mr Palliser as he entered the room. Mr Bott had also
seen him, and had tried to clutch him by the arm; but Mr Palliser
had shaken him off, apparently with indifference,--had got rid of
him, as it were, without noticing him. Lady Glencora, when she saw
her husband, immediately recovered her courage. She would not cower
before him, or show herself ashamed of what she had done. For the
matter of that, if he pressed her on the subject, she could bring
herself to tell him that she loved Burgo Fitzgerald much more easily
than she could whisper such a word to Burgo himself. Mr Bott's eyes
were odious to her as they watched her; but her husband's glance
she could meet without quailing before it. "Here is Mr Palliser,"
said she, speaking again in her ordinary clear-toned voice. Burgo
immediately rose from his seat with a start, and turned quickly
towards the door; but Lady Glencora kept her chair.

Mr Palliser made his way as best he could through the crowd up to
his wife. He, too, kept his countenance without betraying his secret.
There was neither anger nor dismay in his face, nor was there any
untoward hurry in his movement. Burgo stood aside as he came up, and
Lady Glencora was the first to speak. "I thought you were gone home
hours ago," she said.

"I did g