' In vain young Dacre struggled to
maintain his position. His manner was no match for that of Sir Lucius
Grafton. Annoyed with himself, he felt confused, and often quitted his
cousin that he might be free of his friend. Thus Sir Lucius Grafton
contrived never to permit Miss Dacre to be alone with Arundel, and to
her he was so courteous, so agreeable, and so useful, that his absence
seemed always a blank, or a period in which something ever went wrong.
The triumphant day rolled on, and each moment Sir Lucius felt more
sanguine and more excited. We will not dwell upon the advancing
confidence of his desperate mind. Hope expanded into certainty,
certainty burst into impatience. In a desperate moment he breathed his
passion.
May Dacre was the last girl to feel at a loss in such a situation. No
one would have rung him out of a saloon with an air of more contemptuous
majesty. But the shock, the solitary strangeness of the scene, the
fear, for the first time, that none were near, and perhaps, also, her
exhausted energy, frightened her, and she shrieked. One only had heard
that shriek, yet that one was legion.
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