"Miss Vavasor,--who, I think, would have allowed you to call her by
her other name on such an occasion as this,--is never afraid."

"Glencora, how dare you say so?" said Alice. "I really think we had
better go back."

She felt herself to be very angry with her cousin. She almost
began to fear that she had mistaken her, and had thought better of
her than she had deserved. What she had now said struck Alice as
being vulgar,--as being premeditated vulgarity, and her annoyance
was excessive. Of course Mr Palliser would think that she was a
consenting party to the proposition made to him.

"Go back!" said Glencora. "No, indeed. We'll go on, and leave him
here. Then he can call nobody anything. Don't be angry with me," she
said, as soon as they were out of hearing. "The truth is this;--if
you choose to have him for your husband, you may."

"But if I do not choose."

"Then there can be no harm done, and I will tell him so. But,
Alice,--think of this. Whom will you meet that would suit you better?
And you need not decide now. You need not say a word, but leave me to
tell him, that if it is to be thought of at all, it cannot be thought
of till he meets you in London. Trust me, you will be safe with me."

"You shall tell him nothing of the kind," said Alice. "I believe you
to be joking throughout, and I think the joke is a bad one."

"No; there you wrong me. Indeed I am not joking. I know that in what
I am saying I am telling you the simple truth. He has said enough
to me to justify me in saying so. Alice, think of it all. It would
reconcile me to much, and it would be something to be the mother of
the future Duke of Omnium."

"To me it would be nothing," said Alice; "less than nothing. I mean
to say that the temptation is one so easily resisted that it acts in
the other way. Don't say anything more about it, Glencora."

"If you don't wish it, I will not."

"No;--I do not wish it. I don't think I ever saw moonlight so bright
as this. Look at the lines of that window against the light. They are
clearer than you ever see them in the day."

They were now standing just within the gateway of the old cruciform
chapel, having entered the transept from a ruined passage which was
supposed to have connected the church with the dormitory. The church
was altogether roofless, but the entire walls were standing. The
small clerestory windows of the nave were perfect, and the large
windows of the two transepts and of the west end