himself rather than to her. 'Good-bye, Miss Staveley. You will at any rate say good-bye to me. I shall go at once now.'
'Go at once! Go away, Mr. Orme?'
'Yes; why should I stay here? Do you think that I could sit down to table with you all after that? I will ask your brother to explain my going; I shall find him in his room. Good-bye,'
She took his hand mechanically, and then he left her. When she came down to dinner she looked furtively round to this place and saw that it was vacant.
CHAPTER XXXI.
FOOTSTEPS IN THE CORRIDOR.
'Upon my word I am very sorrow,' said the judge, 'But what made him go off so suddenly? I hope there's nobody ill at The Cleeve!' And then the judge took his first spoonful of soup.
'No, no; there is nothing of that sort,' said Augustus. 'His grandfather wants him, and Orme thought he might as well start at once. He was always a sudden harum-scarum fellow like that.'
'He's a very pleasant, nice young man,' said Lady Staveley; 'and never gives himself any airs. I like him exceedingly.'
Poor Madeline did not dare to look either at her mother or her brother, but she would have given much to know whether either of them were aware of the cause which had sent Peregrine Orme so suddenly away from the house. At first she thought that Augustus surely did know, and she was wretched as she thought that he might probably speak to her on the subject. But he went on talking about Orme and his abrupt departure till she became convinced that he knew nothing and suspected nothing of what had occurred.
But her mother said never a word after that eulogium which she had uttered, and Madeline read that eulogium altogether aright. It said to her ears that if ever young Orme should again come forward with his suit, her mother would be prepared to receive him as a suitor; and it said, moreover, that if that suitor had been already sent away by any harsh answer, she would not sympathize with that harshness.
The dinner went on much as usual, but Madeline could not bring herself to say a word. She sat between her brother-in-law, Mr. Arbuthnot, on one side, and an old friend of her father's, of thirty years' standing, on the other. The old friend talked exclusively to Lady Staveley, and Mr. Arbuthnot, though he now and then uttered a word or two, was chiefly occupied with his dinner. During the last three or four days she had sat at dinner next to Peregrine
