When Reginald Morton told her that he could not have congratulated her on such prospects, and had explained to her why in truth he had been angry at the bridge,--how he had been anxious to be alone with her that he might learn whether she were really engaged to this man,--then she had known that her answer to Larry Twentyman at the end of the two months must be a positive refusal.
But as she became aware of this a new trouble arose and harassed her very soul.

When she had asked for the six months she had not at the moment been aware, she had not then felt, that a girl who asks for time is supposed to have already surrendered.

But since she had made that unhappy request the conviction had grown upon her.

She had read it in every word her stepmother said to her and in her father's manner.

The very winks and hints and little jokes which fell from her younger sisters told her that it was so.