ung to his side, had whispered love to him, and he had enough of
the weakness of humanity in him to feel the soreness arising from
her affection for another. When she broke away from him he had
acknowledged that he had been wrong, and when, since her engagement
with Mr Grey, he had congratulated her, he had told her in his quiet,
half-whispered, impressive words how right she was; but not the less,
therefore, did he feel himself hurt that John Grey should be her
lover. And when he had met this man he had spoken well of him to
his sister, saying that he was a gentleman, a scholar, and a man
of parts; but not the less had he hated him from the first moment
of his seeing him. Such hatred under such circumstances was almost
pardonable. But George Vavasor, when he hated, was apt to follow up
his hatred with injury. He could not violently dislike a man and yet
not wish to do him any harm. At present, as he sat lounging in his
chair, he thought that he would like to marry his cousin Alice; but
he was quite sure that he would like to be the means of putting a
stop to the proposed marriage between Alice and John Grey.

Kate had been very false to her friend, and had sent up to her
brother the very letter which Alice had written to her after that
meeting in Queen Anne Street which was described in the last
chapter,--or rather a portion of it, for with the reserve common to
women she had kept back the other half. Alice had declared to herself
that she would be sure of her cousin's sympathy, and had written out
all her heart on the matter, as was her wont when writing to Kate.
"But you must understand," she wrote, "that all that I said to him
went with him for nothing. I had determined to make him know that
everything between us must be over, but I failed. I found that I had
no words at command, but that he was able to talk to me as though I
were a child. He told me that I was sick and full of phantasies, and
bade me change the air. As he spoke in this way, I could not help
feeling how right he was to use me so; but I felt also that he,
in his mighty superiority, could never be a fitting husband for a
creature so inferior to him as I am. Though I altogether failed
to make him understand that it was so, every moment that we were
together made me more fixed in my resolution."

This letter from Alice to Kate, Vavasor read over and over again,
though Kate's letter to himself, which was the longer one, he had
thrown aside after the fi