CHAPTER IX.
THE greater part of them seemed to be charmed with his presence.
MACKENZIE: _The Man of the World_.
IT was with the greatest difficulty that Evelyn could at last be persuaded to consent to the separation from her mother; she wept bitterly at the thought.

But Lady Vargrave, though touched, was firm, and her firmness was of that soft, imploring character which Evelyn never could resist.

The visit was to last some months, it is true, but she would return to the cottage; she would escape, too--and this, perhaps, unconsciously reconciled her more than aught else--the periodical visit of Lord Vargrave.

At the end of July, when the parliamentary session at that unreformed era usually expired, he always came to Brook-Green for a month.

His last visits had been most unwelcome to Evelyn, and this next visit she dreaded more than she had any of the former ones.