When next Dalibard visited Lucretia, his manner was changed; the
cheerfulness he had before assumed gave place to a kind of melancholy
compassion; he no longer entered into her plans for the future, but would
look at her mournfully, start up, and walk away. She would have
attributed the change to some return of his ancient passion, but she
heard him once murmur with unspeakable pity, "Poor child, poor child!" A
vague apprehension seized her,--first, indeed, caught from some remarks
dropped by Mr. Fielden, which were less discreet than Dalibard had
recommended. A day or two afterwards, she asked Mainwaring, carelessly,
why he had never spoken to her at Laughton of his acquaintance with
Fielden.

"You asked me that before," he said, somewhat sullenly.

"Did I? I forget! But how was it? Tell me again."

"I scarcely know," he replied confusedly; "we were always talking of each
other or poor Sir Miles,--our own hopes and fears."

This was true, and a lover's natural excuse. In the present of love all
the past is forgotten.

"Still," said Lucretia, with her sidelong glance,--"still, as you must
have seen much of my own sister--"

Mainwaring, while she spoke, was at work on a button on his gaiter
(gaiters were then worn tight at the ankle); the effort brought the blood
to his forehead.

"But," he said, still stooping at his occupation, "you were so little