elf and explain the matter to her, as Miss Colwyn
cannot possibly do--unless she is a very different person from the one I
take her for. And if that did not avail, go to Miss Polehampton and
persuade her to write a letter----"

He stopped somewhat abruptly. The look of profound astonishment on
Margaret's face recalled him to a sense of limitations. "Margaret!" he
said, pleadingly, "won't you be generous? You can afford to do this
thing for your friend!"

"Go to Miss Morrison and explain! _Persuade_ Miss Polehampton!--after
the way she treated us! But really it is too ridiculous, Sir Philip. You
do not know my friend, Miss Colwyn. She would be the last person to wish
me to humiliate myself to Miss Polehampton!"

"I do not see that what she wishes has much to do with it," said Sir
Philip, very stiffly. "Miss Colwyn is suffering under an injustice. I
ask you to repair that injustice. I really do not see how you can
refuse."

Margaret looked as if she were about to make some mutinous reply; then
she compressed her lips and lowered her eyes for a few seconds.

"I will ask mamma what she thinks," she said at last, in her usual even
tones.

"Why should you ask her?" said Sir Philip, impetuously. "What
consultation is needed, when I simply beg you to be your own true
self--that noble, generous self that I am sure you are! Margaret, don't
disappoint me!"

"I didn't know," said the girl, with proud deliberateness, "that you had
any special interest in the matter, Sir Philip."

"I have this interest--that I love you with all my heart, Margaret, and
hope that you will let me call you my wife one day. It is this love,
this hope, which makes me long to think of you as perfect--always noble
and self-sacrificing and just! Margaret, you will not forbid me to
hope?"

He had chosen a bad time for his declaration of love. He saw this, and
his accent grew more and more supplicating, for he perceived that the
look of repulsion, which he knew and hated, was already stealing into
Margaret's lovely eyes. She stood as if turned into stone, and did not
answer a word. And it was on this scene that Lady Caroline broke at that
moment--a scene which, at first sight, gave the mother keen pleasure,
for it had all the orthodox appearance of love-making: the girl, silent,
downcast, embarrassed; the man passionate and earnest, with head bent
towards her fair face, and hands outstretched in entreaty.

But poor Lady Caroline was soon to be unde