communication with Miss Georgiana Ford, Mr. Powys’s half-sister; about whom Adela was curious, until the Captain ejaculated, “A saint!”—­whereat she was satisfied, knowing by instinct that the preference is for sinners.  Their meetings usually referred to Emilia; and it was astonishing how willingly the Captain would talk of her.  Adela repeated to herself, “This is our mask,” and thus she made it the Captain’s; for it must be said that the conquering Captain had never felt so full of pity to any girl or woman to whom he fancied he had done damage, as to Emilia.  He enjoyed a most thorough belief that she was growing up to perplex him with her love, and he had not consequently attempted to precipitate the measure; but her flight had prematurely perplexed him.  In grave debate with the ends of his moustache for a term, he concluded by accusing Merthyr Powys; and with a little feeling of spite not unknown to masculine dignity, he wrote to Merthyr’s half-sister—­“merely to inquire, being aware that whatever he does you have been consulted on, and the friends of this Miss Belloni are distressed by her absence.”

The ladies of Brookfield were accustomed to their father’s occasional unpremeditated absences, and neither of them had felt an apprehension which she could not dismiss, until one morning Mr. Powys sent up his card to Arabella, requesting permission to speak with her alone.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Georgiana Ford would have had little claim among the fair saints to be accepted by them as one of their order.  Her reputation for coldness was derived from the fact of her having stood a siege from Captain Gambier.  But she loved a creature of earth too well to put up a hand for saintly honours.  The passion of her life centred in devotion to her half-brother.  Those who had studied her said, perhaps with a touch of malignity, that her religious instinct had its source in a desire to gain some place of intercession for him.  Merthyr had leaned upon it too often to doubt the strength of it, whatever its purity might be.  She, when barely more than a child (a girl of sixteen), had followed him over the then luckless Italian fields—­sacrificing as much for a cause that she held to be trivial, as he in the ardour of his half-fanatical worship.  Her theory was:  “These Italians are in bondage, and since heaven permits it, there has been guilt.  By endurance they are strengthened, by suffering chastened; so let them endure and suffer.”  She would cleave to this view with many variations of pity.  Merthyr’s experience was tolerant to the weaker vessel’s young delight in power, which makes her sometimes, though sweet and merciful by nature, enunciate Hebraic severities oracularly.  He smiled, and was never weary of pointing out practical refutations.  Whereat she said, “Will a thousand instances change the principle?” When the brain, and especially the fine brain of a woman,