call her? Let others think her cold. The tender knowledge
of her--the throbbing secret they held in common sang at his heart. Rose
made no confidante, but she attempted no mystery. Evan should have risen
to the height of the noble girl. But the dearer and sweeter her bearing
became, the more conscious he was of the dead weight he was dragging: in
truth her behaviour stamped his false position to hard print the more
he admired her for it, and he had shrinkings from the feminine part it
imposed on him to play.

CHAPTER XXV. IN WHICH THE STREAM FLOWS MUDDY AND CLEAR

An Irish retriever-pup of the Shannon breed, Pat by name, was undergoing
tuition on the sward close by the kennels, Rose's hunting-whip being
passed through his collar to restrain erratic propensities. The
particular point of instruction which now made poor Pat hang out his
tongue, and agitate his crisp brown curls, was the performance of the
'down-charge'; a ceremony demanding implicit obedience from the animal
in the midst of volatile gambadoes, and a simulation of profound repose
when his desire to be up and bounding was mighty. Pat's Irish eyes were
watching Rose, as he lay with his head couched between his forepaws in
the required attitude. He had but half learnt his lesson; and something
in his half-humorous, half-melancholy look talked to Rose more
eloquently than her friend Ferdinand at her elbow. Laxley was her
assistant dog-breaker. Rose would not abandon her friends because she
had accepted a lover. On the contrary, Rose was very kind to Ferdinand,
and perhaps felt bound to be so to-day. To-day, also, her face was
lighted; a readiness to colour, and an expression of deeper knowledge,
which she now had, made the girl dangerous to friends. This was not
Rose's fault but there is no doubt among the faculty that love is
a contagious disease, and we ought not to come within miles of the
creatures in whom it lodges.

Pat's tail kept hinting to his mistress that a change would afford him
satisfaction. After a time she withdrew her wistful gaze from him,
and listened entirely to Ferdinand: and it struck her that he spoke
particularly well to-day, though she did not see so much in his eyes as
in Pat's. The subject concerned his departure, and he asked Rose if she
should be sorry. Rose, to make him sure of it, threw a music into her
voice dangerous to friends. For she had given heart and soul to Evan,
and had a sense, therefore, of being irredeemably i