akfast the next morning nothing was said for a while about the
new arrival. At last Mr Palliser ventured to speak. "Glencora has
told you, I think, that Mr Grey is here? Mr Grey is an old friend of
yours, I believe?"

Alice, keeping her countenance as well as she was able, said Mr Grey
had been, and, indeed, was, a very dear friend of hers. Mr Palliser
knew the whole story, and what was the use of any little attempt at
dissimulation? "I shall be glad to see him,--if you will allow me?"
she went on to say.

"Glencora suggests that we should ask him to dinner," said Mr
Palliser; and then that matter was settled.

But Mr Grey did not wait till dinner-time to see Alice. Early in the
morning his card was brought up, and Lady Glencora, as soon as she
saw the name, immediately ran away.

"Indeed you need not go," said Alice.

"Indeed I shall go," said her ladyship. "I know what's proper on
these occasions, if you don't."

So she went, whisking herself along the passages with a little run;
and Mr Grey, as he was shown into her ladyship's usual sitting-room,
saw the skirt of her ladyship's dress as she whisked herself off
towards her husband.

"I told you I should come," he said, with his ordinary sweet smile.
"I told you that I should follow you, and here I am."

He took her hand, and held it, pressing it warmly. She hardly knew
with what words first to address him, or how to get her hand back
from him.

"I am very glad to see you,--as an old friend," she said; "but I
hope--"

"Well;--you hope what?"

"I hope you have had some better cause for travelling than a desire
to see me?"

"No, dearest; no. I have had no better cause, and, indeed, none
other. I have come on purpose to see you; and had Mr Palliser
taken you off to Asia or Africa, I think I should have felt myself
compelled to follow him. You know why I follow you?"

"Hardly," said she,--not finding at the moment any other word that
she could say.

"Because I love you. You see what a plain-spoken John Bull I am, and
how I come to the point at once. I want you to be my wife; and they
say that perseverance is the best way when a man has such a want as
that."

"You ought not to want it," she said, whispering the words as though
she were unable to speak them out loud.

"But I do, you see. And why should I not want it?"

"I am not fit to be your wife."

"I am the best judge of that, Alice. You have to make up your mind
whether I am fit to be your hus