he Satyr?"

"I'll leave your heart to tell you. You know what is the darling
wish of my heart. But, Alice, if I thought that Mr Grey was to you
Hyperion,--if I thought that you could marry him with that sort of
worshipping, idolatrous love which makes a girl proud as well as
happy in her marriage, I wouldn't raise a little finger to prevent
it."

To this Alice made no answer, and then Kate allowed the matter to
drop. Alice made no answer, though she felt that she was allowing
judgement to go against her by default in not doing so. She had
intended to fight bravely, and to have maintained the excellence
of her present position as the affianced bride of Mr Grey, but she
felt that she had failed. She felt that she had, in some sort,
acknowledged that the match was one to be deplored;--that her words
in her own defence would by no means have satisfied Mr Grey, if Mr
Grey could have heard them;--that they would have induced him to
offer her back her troth rather than have made him happy as a lover.
But she had nothing further to say. She could do something. She would
hurry home and bid him name the earliest day he pleased. After that
her cousin would cease to disturb her in her career.

It was nearly one o'clock before the two girls began to prepare for
their morning start, and Alice, when they had finished their packing,
seemed to be worn out with fatigue. "If you are tired, dear, we'll
put it off," said Kate. "Not for worlds," said Alice. "For half a
word we'll do it," continued Kate. "I'll slip out to George and tell
him, and there's nothing he'd like so much." But Alice would not
consent.

About two they got into bed, and punctually at six they were at the
railway station. "Don't speak to me," said George, when he met them
at their door in the passage. "I shall only yawn in your face."
However, they were in time,--which means abroad that they were at the
station half an hour before their train started,--and they went on
upon their journey to Strasbourg.

There is nothing further to be told of their tour. They were but two
days and nights on the road from Basle to London; and during those
two days and nights neither George nor Kate spoke a word to Alice of
her marriage, nor was any allusion made to the balcony at the inn, or
to the bridge over the river.

CHAPTER VII

Aunt Greenow

Kate Vavasor remained only three days in London before she started
for Yarmouth; and during those three days she was not m