und, if you only press hard enough. If
not, you are well quit of her."

He cried out at this, and Rosamond saw that what she called
faintness of heart was really reverence and sense of his own
failings; but none the less did she scorn such misplaced adoration,
as it seemed to her, and scold him in her own fashion, for not
rushing on to conquer irresistibly; or else being cool and easy as
to his rejection. He would accept neither alternative, was
depressed beyond the power of comfort, bodily weariness adding to
his other ills, and went off at last to bed, without retracting his
intention of going away.

"Well, Terry, it is a new phase, and a most perplexing one!" said
Rosamond, when her brother came back with arch curiosity in his
brown eyes. "The girl has gone and turned him over, and there he
lies on his back prostrate, just like Ponto, when he knows he
deserves it!"

"Turned him over--you don't mean that she is off? I thought she was
a perfect angel of loveliness and goodness."

"Goodness! It is enough to make one hate goodness, unless this is
all mere pretence on her part. But what I am afraid of is his
setting off, no one knows where, before any one is up, and leaving
us to confront his mother, while he falls ill in some dog-hole of a
place. He is not fit to go about by himself, and I trust to you to
watch him, Terry."

"Shall I lie on the mat outside his door?" said Terry, half meaning
it, and somewhat elated by the romantic situation.

"No, we are not come to quite such extremities. You need not even
turn his key by mistake; only keep your ears open. He is next to
you, is he not?--and go in on pretext of inquiry--if you hear him up
to mischief."

Nothing was heard but the ordinary summons of Boots; and it turned
out in the morning that the chill had exasperated his throat, and
reduced him to a condition which took away all inclination to move,
besides deafening him completely.

Rosamond had to rush about all day, providing plenishing for the
lodging. Once she saw Sir Harry and his daughter in the distance,
and dashed into a shop to avoid them, muttering, "I don't believe
she cared for him one bit. I dare say she has taken up with Lorimer
Strangeways after all! Rather worse than her sister, I declare, for
she never pretended to be too _good_ for Raymond," and then as a
curate in a cassock passed--"Ah! some of them have been working on
her, and persuading her that he is not good enough for he