e present intolerable moment. There rose
before her in an awful vision that night when she had found him
sleeping in the library; when she had stayed and risked the chances of
his waking. Well, he could not think any the worse of her for that;
because he had not waked. But she had risked it. The more she thought
of it the more she saw what she had risked. He would always think of
her as a woman who did risky things. Edith had said she had put
herself in his power. She remembered how she had come between him and
the woman whom he would have married but for her; how she had invited
him to sit with her when the Beaver was away. He had liked it, but he
must have had his own opinion of her all the same. That was another of
the risky things. And of course he had taken advantage of it. That was
the very worst of all. He had loved her in his way; she had been one
of a series. Flossie had come before her. And before Flossie? All that
was fine in him had turned against Flossie because of the feeling she
inspired. And it had turned against her.

For now, when he had got over it, had forgotten that he had ever had
that feeling, when all he wanted was to go his own way and let her go
hers, she had tried to force herself upon him (Lucia was unaware of
her violent distortion of the facts). He had come with his simple
honourable desire for reparation; and she had committed _the_
unpardonable blunder--she had mistaken his intentions. And for the
monument and crown of her dishonour, she, Lucia Harden, had proposed
to him and been rejected.

Her misery endured (with some merciful intermissions) for three weeks.
Then Horace Jewdwine wrote and invited himself down for the first
week-end in May.

"_Can_ he come, Kitty?" she asked wearily.

"Of course he can, dear, if you want him,"

"I don't want him; but I don't mind his coming."

Kitty said to herself, "He has an inkling; Edith has been saying
things; and it has brought him to the point." Otherwise she could not
account for such an abrupt adventure on the part of the deliberate
Horace. It was a Wednesday; and he proposed to come on Friday. He
came on Friday. Kitty's observation was on the alert; but it could
detect nothing that first evening beyond a marked improvement in
Horace Jewdwine. With Lucia he was sympathetic, deferential, charming.
He also laid himself out, a little elaborately, to be agreeable to
Kitty.

In the morning he approached Lucia with a gift, brought for her
b