"Certainly."

"And between that time and this, you will engage not to hold any
communication with my daughter?"

"I promise not, Mr. Sherwin--because I believe that your answer will
be favourable."

"Ah, well--well! lovers, they say, should never despair. A little
consideration, and a little talk with my dear girl--really now, won't
you change your mind and have a glass of sherry? (No again?) Very
well, then, the day after tomorrow, at five o'clock."

With a louder crack than ever, the brand-new drawing-room door was
opened to let me out. The noise was instantly succeeded by the
rustling of a silk dress, and the banging of another door, at the
opposite end of the passage. Had anybody been listening? Where was
Margaret?

Mr. Sherwin stood at the garden-gate to watch my departure, and to
make his farewell bow. Thick as was the atmosphere of illusion in
which I now lived, I shuddered involuntarily as I returned his parting
salute, and thought of him as my father-in-law!

XI.

The nearer I approached to our own door, the more reluctance I felt to
pass the short interval between my first and second interview with Mr.
Sherwin, at home. When I entered the house, this reluctance increased
to something almost like dread. I felt unwilling and unfit to meet the