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Rh Hatty looked scarlet and indignant, but that may have been due to her violent cough.

"For instance," continued Elizabeth, taking advantage of her friend's inability to speak, "I am not stupider than most other women, and I know very little of your brother, after nearly three months' acquaintance."

"It is your own fault," gasped Hatty.

"No, I deny that. He doesn't wish me to know him. You are always trying to make him like me, but it is of no use. One can't fight against that sort of prejudice."

Miss Baring sat up in bed, and leant forward, pressing her face close to Elizabeth's, as she said—

"How blind you are!" Then she sank back on her pillow. After a little pause, she continued, "Alaric dislikes to see you wasting yourself on such society as Monsieur Doucet's or Mr. George's."

"What is there against Mr. George? I give up Monsieur Doucet—but Mr. George? A clever, inoffensive young man, with good spirits, but never an attempt at familiarity," she flared up.

"He has not a face to be trusted."

"Come, that is prejudice, if you will! There is a fine healthy robustness about the man at variance with anything underhand."

"I caught him fingering all the letters that had arrived the other morning."

"He wanted to see if there was one for himself, I suppose."

"He was examining one in a suspicious way, as if he wanted to open it, and dropped it as he caught sight of me."