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.