e right through into his heart." After that George was left alone,
and sat thinking whether it would not be better to ask Alice for two
thousand pounds at once,--so as to save him from the disagreeable
necessity of a second borrowing before their marriage. He was very
uneasy in his mind. He had flattered himself through it all that his
cousin had loved him. He had felt sure that such was the case while
they were together in Switzerland. When she had determined to give
up John Grey, of course he had told himself the same thing. When she
had at once answered his first subsequent overture with an assent, he
had of course been certain that it was so. Dark, selfish, and even
dishonest as he was, he had, nevertheless, enjoyed something of a
lover's true pleasure in believing that Alice had still loved him
through all their mischances. But his joy had in a moment been turned
into gall during that interview in Queen Anne Street. He had read the
truth at a glance. A man must be very vain, or else very little used
to such matters, who at George Vavasor's age cannot understand the
feelings with which a woman receives him. When Alice contrived as she
had done to escape the embrace he was so well justified in asking, he
knew the whole truth. He was sore at heart, and very angry withal.
He could have readily spurned her from him, and rejected her who had
once rejected him. He would have done so had not his need for her
money restrained him. He was not a man who could deceive himself in
such matters. He knew that this was so, and he told himself that he
was a rascal.

Vavasor Hall was, by the road, about five miles from Shap, and it
was not altogether an easy task for Kate to get over to the village
without informing her grandfather that the visit was to be made, and
what was its purport. She could, indeed, walk, and the walk would not
be so long as that she had taken with Alice to Swindale fell;--but
walking to an inn on a high road, is not the same thing as walking
to a point on a hill side over a lake. Had she been dirty, draggled,
and wet through on Swindale fell, it would have simply been matter
for mirth; but her brother she knew would not have liked to see her
enter the Lowther Arms at Shap in such a condition. It, therefore,
became necessary that she should ask her grandfather to lend her the
jaunting car.

"Where do you want to go?" he asked sharply. In such establishments
as that at Vavasor Hall the family horse is general