* * * * *

The first hint that Ralph had that he had been making a mistake in his estimate of her, came from Margaret Roper, who was still living at Chelsea with her husband Will.

Ralph had walked up to the house one bleak afternoon in early spring along the river-bank from Westminster, and had found Margaret alone in the dining-hall, seated by the window with her embroidery in her hand, and a Terence propped open on the sill to catch the last gleams of light from the darkening afternoon.  She greeted Ralph warmly, for he was a very familiar figure to them all by now, and soon began to talk, when he had taken a seat by the wide open fireplace whence the flames flickered out, casting shadows and lights round the high room, across the high-hung tapestries and in the gloomy corners.

“Beatrice is here,” she said presently, “upstairs with father.  I think she is doing some copying for him.”

“She is a great deal with him,” observed Ralph.

“Why, yes; father thinks so much of her.  He says that none can write so well as she, or has such a quick brain.  And then she does not talk, he says, nor ask foolish woman-questions like the rest of us.”  And Margaret glanced up a moment, smiling.

“I suppose I must not go up,” said Ralph, a little peevishly; for he was tired with his long day.

“Why, no, you must not,” said Margaret, “but she will be down soon, Mr. Torridon.”

There was silence for a moment or two; and then Margaret spoke again.

“Mr. Torridon,” she said, “may I say something?” Ralph made a little sound of assent.  The warmth of the fire was making him sleepy.

“Well, it is this,” said Margaret slowly, “I think you believe that Beatrice does not like you.  That is not true.  She is very fond of you; she thinks a great deal of you,” she added, rather hastily.

Ralph sat up; his drowsiness was gone.

“How do you know that, Mrs. Roper?” he asked.  His voice sounded perfectly natural, and Margaret was reassured at the tone of it.  She could not see Ralph well; it was getting dark now.

“I know it well,” she said.  “Of course we talk of you when you are gone.”

“And does Mrs. Beatrice talk of me?”

“Not so much,” said Margaret, “but she listens very closely; and asks us questions sometimes.”  The girl’s heart was beating with excitement as she spoke; but she had made up her mind to seek this opportunity.  It seemed a pity, she thought, that two friends of hers should so misunderstood one another.

“And what kind of questions?” asked Ralph again.

“She wonders—­what you really think—­” went on Margaret slowly, bending down over her embroidery, and punctuating her words with stitches—­“about—­about affairs—­and—­and she said one day that—­”

“Well?” said Ralph in the same tone.

“That she thought you were not so severe as you seemed,” ended Margaret, her voice a little tremulous with amusement.