It was Miss Sybilla Silver, who was already asserting her prerogative
as amateur lady's-maid.

My lady shut herself up in her own room for the remainder of the
evening, too angry and mortified for words to tell. It was the first
quarrel she and her idolized son ever had, and the disappointment of
all her ambitious hopes left her miserable enough.

But scarcely so miserable as Sir Everard. To be hopelessly in love on
such short notice was bad enough; to have the dread of a rejection
hanging over him was worse; but to have this dark mystery looming
horribly in the horizon was worst of all.

His mother's insinuations alone would not have disturbed him; but those
insinuations, taken in unison with Captain Hunsden's mysterious illness
of the morning, drove him nearly wild.

"And I dare not even ask," he thought, "or set my doubts at rest. Any
inquiry from me, before proposing, would be impertinent; and after
proposing they would be too late. But one thing I am certain of--if I
lose Harrie Hunsden, I shall go mad!"

While he tore up and down like a caged tiger, the door softly opened
and his sister looked in.

"Alone, Everard?" she said, timidly, "I thought mamma was with you."

"Mamma has just gone to her room in a blessed temper," answered her
brother, savagely. "Come in Milly, and help me in this horrible
scrape, if you can."