guess the sea will come and swallow up Newport. But I didn't come here to talk about Mrs. Palmer.'
He finished taking off his gloves, threw them into his hat, and took a chair exactly opposite her, so that they faced each other as in a waggonette, which to Sybil was an odious vehicle for locomotion. His likeness to Charlie was somehow strangely obliterated to-day; she thought of the latter as of something suffering, in need of protection, whereas the same-featured man who sat opposite her looked particularly capable of self-defence, and, if necessary, of aggression. For the first time she rather feared him, and dislike looked hazily out through the tremor of fear.
' You ran away from America in a great hurry,' he said. ' You left us very desolate.'
Something in this quite harmless speech displeased Sybil immensely.
' Ran away?' she asked.
' Yes, ran away; but only incidentally from America. You ran away from me; I came after you.'
Sybil got up.
' Really, Mr. Bilton,' she said, ' you have left your manners the other side of the Atlantic.'
She went half-way across the room with the intention of ringing the bell, but she stopped before she got there; curiosity about the development of this situation conquered, and she sat down again.
He took no notice of her remark about his manners.
' I have come to ask you to marry me,' he said. ' You are the woman I have been looking for all my life. I will try to make you very happy.'
She answered him without pause.
' I am very grateful to you,' she said; ' but I cannot.'
' You led me to suppose you would,' said he.
' I am very sorry for it.'
There was a moment's silence.
