Her girl's heart would not be broken.

But if he so strongly loved her, as to hold to this engagement ?...

It might then be worse.

She dropped a plumb-line into the young man, sounding him by what she knew of him and judged.

She had to revert to Nesta's charm, for the assurance of his anchored attachment.
Her holiday took the burden of her trouble, and amid the beauty of a disenchanted scene, she resumed the London incubus.
'You told him of her being at the Wells?
in the neighbourhood, Victor ?' 'Didn't you know, my dear, the family-seat is Cronidge, two miles out from the Wells ?--and particularly pretty country.' 'I had forgotten, if I ever heard.