He found Hylda in the library with an evening paper in her hands.

She had read and reread his speech, and had steeled herself for "the inevitable hour," to this talk which would decide for ever their fate and future.
Eglington entered the room smiling.

He remembered the incident of the night before, when she came to his study and then hurriedly retreated.
He had been defiant and proudly disdainful at the House and on the way home; but in his heart of hearts he was conscious of having failed to have his own way; and, like such men, he wanted assurance that he could not err, and he wanted sympathy.

Almost any one could have given it to him, and he had a temptation to seek that society which was his the evening before; but he remembered that she was occupied where he could not reach her, and here was Hylda, from whom he had been estranged, but who must surely have seen by now that at Hamley she had been unreasonable, and that she must trust his judgment.

So absorbed was he with self and the failure of his speech, that, for a moment, he forgot the subject of it, and what that subject meant to them both.
"What do you think of my speech, Hylda ?" he asked, as he threw himself into a chair.