"I wish you wouldn't startle me," she said, irritably, sinking back on the sofa.

"Any sudden alarm sets my heart beating as if it would choke me." Horace pleaded for pardon with a lover's humility.

In her present state of nervous irritation she was not to be appeased.

She looked away from him in silence.

Entirely ignorant of the paroxysm of mental suffering through which she had just passed, he seated himself by her side, and asked her gently if she had seen Lady Janet.