perhaps, hold his favorite's future in her hands. "Does he care for her?"
he wondered. If he did, the old man felt that he would gladly have knelt to
entreat her, "Be good to my poor Percival." But did Percival want her to be
good to him? Godfrey Thorne was altogether in the dark about his grandson's
wishes in the matter. He tried hard not to think that he was in the dark
about every wish or hope of Percival's, and he looked up eagerly when the
latter said something about going out the next day. He remembered which
horse Percival liked, he assented to everything, but he watched him all the
time with a wistful curiosity. He did not really care where Percival went,
but he would have given much for such a word about his plans as would have
proved to Harriet, and to himself too, that his boy _did_ confide in him
sometimes. It was not to be, however. Young Thorne had taken up the local
paper and the subject dropped. Mr. Thorne may have guessed later, but he
never knew where his roan horse went the next day.




CHAPTER II.

"THOSE EYES OF YOURS."


Not five miles away that same evening a conversation was going on which
would have interested Mrs. Middleton.

The scene was an up-stairs room in a pleasant house near the county town.
Mrs. Blake, a woman of seven or eight and forty, handsome and well
preserved, but of a high-colored type, leant back in an easy-chair lazily
unfastening her bracelets, by way of signifying that she had begun to