370 The Real Charlotte. 



self-sufRcing, and possessed of innumerable interests besides 

 herself; she knew him now as dishonest and disgraced, 

 and miserable, stripped of all his pretensions and vanities, 

 but she cared for him to-day more than yesterday. It was 

 against her will that his weakness appealed to her; she 

 would have given worlds for a heart that did not smite her 

 at its claim, but her pride helped out her compassion. She 

 told herself that she could not let people have it to say that 

 she ran away from Roddy because he was in trouble. 



She felt chilly, and she shivered as she stood by the fire, 

 whose unseasonable extravagance daily vexed the righteous 

 soul of Eliza Hackett. Hawkins' note was in her hand, 

 and she read it through twice while she waited ; then, as 

 she heard the sound of wheels on the gravel, she tore it in 

 two and threw it into the fire, and, for the second time that 

 morning, ran to the window. 



It was Christopher Dysart again. He saw her at the 

 window and took off his cap, and before he had time to 

 ring the bell, she had opened the hall door. She had, he 

 saw at once, been crying, and her paleness, and the tell-tale 

 heaviness of her eyes, contrasted pathetically with the 

 smartness of her figure in her riding habit, and the boyish 

 jauntiness of her hard felt hat. 



" Mr. Lambert isn't in, Sir Christopher," she began at 

 once, as if she had made up her mind whom he had come 

 to see ; " but won't you come in ? " 



" Oh — thank you — I — I haven't much time — I merely 

 wanted to speak to your husband," stammered Christopher. 



** Oh, please come in," she repeated, " I want to speak to 

 you." Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and she turned 

 quickly from him and walked towards the drawing-room. 



Christopher followed her with the mien of a criminal. 

 He felt that he would rather have been robbed twenty times 

 over than see the eyes that, in his memory, had always been 

 brilliant and undefeated, avoiding his as if they were afraid 

 of him, and know that he was the autocrat before whom she 

 trembled. She remained standing near the middle of the 

 room, with one hand on the corner of the piano, whose 

 gaudy draperies had, even at this juncture, a painful sub 

 eff"ect upon Christopher ; her other hand fidgeted restlessly 

 with a fold of the habit that she was holding up, and it was 

 evident that whatever her motive had been in bringing him 



