194 ^^^ i?^<3:/ Charlotte, 



" No, I will not let you go," he said, drawing her towards 

 him with bullying tenderness. " In the first place, you're 

 not able to stand, and in the second place, I'm not going to 

 marry anybody but you." 



He spoke with a certainty that convinced himself; the 

 certainty of a character that does not count the cost either 

 for itself or for others ; and, in the space of a kiss, her dis- 

 trust was left far behind her as a despicable thing. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



Nearly three weeks had gone by since Mrs. Beattie's party, 

 and as Charlotte Mullen walked slowly along the road 

 towards Rosemount one afternoon, her eyes fixed on the 

 square toes of her boots, and her hands, as was her custom, 

 in the pockets of her black jacket, she meditated agreeably 

 upon recent events. Of these perhaps the pleasantest was 

 Mr. Hawkins' departure to Hythe, for a musketry course, 

 which had taken place somewhat unexpectedly a fortnight 

 ago. He was a good-for-nothing young limb, and engage- 

 ment or no engagement it was a good job he was out of the 

 place ; and, after all, Francie had not seemed to mind. 

 Almost equally satisfactory was the recollection of that 

 facetious letter to Christopher Dysart, in which she had so 

 playfully reminded him of the ancient promise to photograph 

 the Tally Ho cats, and hoped that she and her cousin would 

 not come under that category. Its success had even been 

 surprising, for not only had Christopher come and spent a 

 long afternoon in that difficult enterprise, but had come 

 again more than once, on pretexts that had appeared to 

 Charlotte satisfactorily flimsy, and had apparently set aside 

 what she knew to be his repugnance to herself. That he 

 should lend Francie "John Inglesant" and Rossetti's Poems, 

 made Charlotte laugh in her sleeve. She had her own very 

 sound opinion of her cousin's literary capacity, and had no 

 sympathy for the scientific interest felt by a philosopher in 

 the evolution of a nascent soul. Christopher's manner did 

 not, it is true, coincide with her theory of a lover, which was 

 crude, and founded on taste rather than experience, but she 

 had imagination enough to recognise that Christopher, in 



