Her headache was worse, and singing an impossibility.
"I am afraid I must lie down," she said.

"I am half blind with the pain.
You must seek refuge in the billiard-room, Reginald, while I go upstairs." Mr.Stanford expressed his regrets, kissed her hand--he was very calm and decorous with his stately lady-love--and let her go.
"I wish Rose had stayed," he thought; "poor little girl! how miserable she does look sometimes.

I am afraid I have not acted quite right; and I don't know that I am not going to make a scoundrel of myself; but how is a fellow to help it?
Kate's too beautiful and too perfect for mortal man; and I am very mortal, indeed, and should feel uncomfortable married to perfection." He walked to the curtained recess of the drawing-room, where Rose had one morning battled with her despair, and threw himself down among the pillows of the lounge.

Those very pillows whereon his handsome head rested had been soaked in Rose's tears, shed for his sweet sake--but how was he to know that?
It was such a cozy little nook, so still and dusky, and shut in, that Mr.Stanford, whose troubles did not prey on him very profoundly, closed his dark eyes, and went asleep in five minutes.
And sleeping, Rose found him.

Going to her room to read, she remembered she had left her book on the sofa in the recess, and ran down stairs again to get it.