een a coolness between them at Brighton. But
Francine--still influenced by the magnetic attraction which drew her
to Emily--did not conceal from herself that she had offered the
provocation, and had been therefore the person to blame. "I can set all
that right," she thought, "when we meet at Monksmoor Park." She opened
her desk and wrote the shortest and sweetest of letters to Cecilia. "I
am entirely at the disposal of my charming friend, on any convenient
day--may I add, my dear, the sooner the better?"

CHAPTER XXXVII. "THE LADY WANTS YOU, SIR."

The pupils of the drawing-class put away their pencils and color-boxes
in high good humor: the teacher's vigilant eye for faults had failed
him for the first time in their experience. Not one of them had been
reproved; they had chattered and giggled and drawn caricatures on the
margin of the paper, as freely as if the master had left the room.
Alban's wandering attention was indeed beyond the reach of control. His
interview with Francine had doubled his sense of responsibility
toward Emily--while he was further than ever from seeing how he could
interfere, to any useful purpose, in his present position, and with his
reasons for writing under reserve.

One of the servants addressed him as he was leaving the schoolroom.
The landlady's boy was waiting in the hall, with a message from his
lodgings.

"Now then! what is it?" he asked, irritably.

"The lady wants you, sir." With this mysterious answer, the boy
presented a visiting card. The name inscribed on it was--"Miss Jethro."

She had arrived by the train, and she was then waiting at Alban's
lodgings. "Say I will be with her directly." Having given the message,
he stood for a while, with his hat in his hand--literally lost in
astonishment. It was simply impossible to guess at Miss Jethro's
object: and yet, with the usual perversity of human nature, he was still
wondering what she could possibly want with him, up to the final moment
when he opened the door of his sitting-room.

She rose and bowed with the same grace of movement, and the same
well-bred composure of manner, which Doctor Allday had noticed when she
entered his consulting-room. Her dark melancholy eyes rested on Alban
with a look of gentle interest. A faint flush of color animated for
a moment the faded beauty of her face--passed away again--and left it
paler than before.

"I cannot conceal from myself," she began, "that I am intruding on you
under e