'Don't go at him like Samson blind,' said Mr. Lydiard; and Miss Denham,
who had returned, begged her guardian to entreat the guest to stay.

She said in an undertone, 'I am very anxious you should see Captain
Beauchamp, madam.'

'I too; but he will write, and I really can wait no longer,' Rosamund
replied, in extreme apprehension lest a certain degree of pressure should
overbear her repugnance to the doctor's dinner-table. Miss Denham's look
was fixed on her; but, whatever it might mean, Rosamund's endurance was
at an end. She was invited to dine; she refused. She was exceedingly
glad to find herself on the high-road again, with a prospect of reaching
Steynham that night; for it was important that she should not have to
confess a visit to Bevisham now when she had so little of favourable to
tell Mr. Everard Romfrey of his chosen nephew. Whether she had acted
quite wisely in not remaining to see Nevil, was an agitating question
that had to be silenced by an appeal to her instincts of repulsion,
and a further appeal for justification of them to her imaginary
sisterhood of gossips. How could she sit and eat, how pass an evening
in that house, in the society of that man? Her tuneful chorus cried,
'How indeed.' Besides, it would have offended Mr. Romfrey to hear that
she had done so. Still she could not refuse to remember Miss Denham's
marked intimations of there being a reason for Nevil's friend to seize
the chance of an immediate interview with him; and in her distress at the
thought, Rosamund reluctantly, but as if compelled by necessity, ascribed
the young lady's conduct to a strong sense of personal interests.

'Evidently she has no desire he should run the risk of angering a rich
uncle.'