“That will be impossible, Arabella.”

“They shall see whether it is impossible.  I have got beyond caring very much what people say now.  I know the kind of way papa would be thrown over if there is no one there to back him.  I shall be there and I will ask Lord Rufford to his face whether we did not become engaged when we were at Mistletoe.”

“They won’t let you in.”

“I’ll find a way to make my way in.  I shall never be his wife.  I don’t know that I want it.  After all what’s the good of living with a man if you hate each other,—­or living apart like you and papa?”

“He has income enough for anything!” exclaimed Lady Augustus, shocked at her daughter’s apparent blindness.

“It isn’t that I’m thinking of, but I’ll have my revenge on him.  Liar!  To write and say that I had made a mistake!  He had not the courage to get out of it when we were together; but when he had run away in the night, like a thief, and got into his own house, then he could write and say that I had made a mistake!  I have sometimes pitied men when I have seen girls hunting them down, but upon my word they deserve it!” This renewal of spirit did something to comfort Lady Augustus.  She had begun to fear that her daughter, in her despair, would abandon altogether the one pursuit of her life;—­but it now seemed that there was still some courage left for the battle.

That night nothing more was said, but Arabella applied all her mind to the present condition of her circumstances.  Should she or should she not go to the House in Piccadilly on the following morning?  At last she determined that she would not do so, believing that should her father fail she might make a better opportunity for herself afterwards.  At her uncle’s house she would hardly have known where or how to wait for the proper moment of her appearance.  “So you are not going to Piccadilly,” said her mother on the following morning.

“It appears not,” said Arabella.

CHAPTER II

“Now what have you got to say?”

It may be a question whether Lord Augustus Trefoil or Lord Rufford looked forward to the interview which was to take place at the Duke’s mansion with the greater dismay.  The unfortunate father whose only principle in life had been that of avoiding trouble would have rather that his daughter should have been jilted a score of times than that he should have been called upon to interfere once.  There was in this demand upon him a breach of a silent but well-understood compact.  His wife and daughter had been allowed to do just what they pleased and to be free of his authority, upon an understanding that they were never to give him any trouble.  She might have married Lord Rufford, or Mr. Morton, or any other man she might have succeeded in catching, and he would not have troubled her either before or after her marriage.  But it was not fair that he should be called upon