follow. 'Tell the truth: say you were sent for to receive a wedding
present--that it was a mistake on my part--a mistake on yours; and I
think they'll forgive . . . And, Margery, my last request to you is
this: that if I send for you again, you do not come. Promise
solemnly, my dear girl, that any such request shall be unheeded.'

Her lips moved, but the promise was not articulated. 'O, sir, I
cannot promise it!' she said at last.

'But you must; your salvation may depend on it!' he insisted almost
sternly. 'You don't know what I am.'

'Then, sir, I promise,' she replied. 'Now leave me to myself,
please, and I'll go indoors and manage matters.'

He turned the horse and drove away, but only for a little distance.
Out of sight he pulled rein suddenly. 'Only to go back and propose
it to her, and she'd come!' he murmured.

He stood up in the phaeton, and by this means he could see over the
hedge. Margery still sat listlessly in the same place; there was not
a lovelier flower in the field. 'No,' he said; 'no, no--never!' He
reseated himself, and the wheels sped lightly back over the soft dust
to Mount Lodge.

Meanwhile Margery had not moved. If the Baron could dissimulate on
the side of severity she could dissimulate on the side of calm. He
did not know what had been veiled by the quiet promise to manage
matters indoors. Rising at length she first turned away from the
house; and, by-and-by, having apparently forgotten till then that she