to her mind of farther travel.  But wherever she went there would be a post-office, and she was aware that the young man could pursue her much quicker than she could fly.  How good it would be that in such an emergency she might have the privilege of locking her daughter up in some convent!  And yet it must be a Protestant convent, as all things savoring of the Roman Catholic religion were abhorrent to her.  Altogether, as she thought of her own condition and that of her daughter, she felt that the world was sadly out of joint.

“Coming here, is he?” said Sir Magnus.  “Then he will just have to go back again as wise as he came.”

“But can you shut your doors against him?”

“Shut my doors!  Of course I can.  He’ll never be able to get his nose in here if once an order has been given for his exclusion.  Who’s Mr. Annesley?  I don’t suppose he knows an Englishman in Brussels.”

“But she will go out to meet him.”

“What! in the streets?” said Sir Magnus, in horror.

“I fear she would.”

“By George! she must be a stiff-necked one if she’ll do that.”  Then Mrs. Mountjoy, with tears in her eyes, began to explain with very many epithets that her daughter was the best girl in all the world.  She was entirely worthy of confidence.  Those who knew her were aware that no better behaved young woman could exist.  She was conscientious, religious, and high-principled.  “But she’ll go out in the streets and walk with a young man when all her friends tell her not.  Is that her idea of religion?” Then Mrs. Mountjoy, with some touch of anger in the tone of her voice, said that she would return to England, and carry her daughter with her.  “What the deuce can I do, Sarah, when the young lady is so unruly?  I can give orders to have him shut out, and can take care that they are obeyed; but I cannot give orders to have her shut in.  I should be making her a prisoner, and everybody would talk about it.  In that matter you must give her the orders;—­only you say that she would not comply with them.”

On the following day Mrs. Mountjoy informed her daughter that they would go back to Cheltenham.  She did not name an immediate day, because it would be well, she thought, to stave off the evil hour.  Nor did she name a distant day, because, were she to do so, the terrible evil of Harry Annesley’s arrival in Brussels would not be prevented.  At first she wished to name no day, thinking that it would be a good thing to cross Harry on the road.  But here Florence was too strong for her, and at last a day was fixed.  In a week’s time they would take their departure and go home by slow stages.  With this arrangement Florence expressed herself well pleased, and of course made Harry acquainted with the probable time of their arrival.