ss Harleth?" said the lady.

"Yes." All Gwendolen's consciousness was wonder.

"Have you accepted Mr. Grandcourt?"

"No."

"I have promised to tell you something. And you will promise to keep my
secret. However you may decide you will not tell Mr. Grandcourt, or any
one else, that you have seen me?"

"I promise."

"My name is Lydia Glasher. Mr. Grandcourt ought not to marry any one
but me. I left my husband and child for him nine years ago. Those two
children are his, and we have two others--girls--who are older. My
husband is dead now, and Mr. Grandcourt ought to marry me. He ought to
make that boy his heir."

She looked at the boy as she spoke, and Gwendolen's eyes followed hers.
The handsome little fellow was puffing out his cheeks in trying to blow
a tiny trumpet which remained dumb. His hat hung backward by a string,
and his brown curls caught the sun-rays. He was a cherub.

The two women's eyes met again, and Gwendolen said proudly, "I will not
interfere with your wishes." She looked as if she were shivering, and
her lips were pale.

"You are very attractive, Miss Harleth. But when he first knew me, I
too was young. Since then my life has been broken up and embittered. It
is not fair that he should be happy and I miserable, and my boy thrust
out of sight for another."

These words were uttered with a biting accent, but with a determined
abstinence from anything violent in tone or manner. Gwendolen, watching
Mrs. Glasher's face while she spoke, felt a sort of terror: it was as
if some ghastly vision had come to her in a dream and said, "I am a
woman's life."

"Have you anything more to say to me?" she asked in a low tone, but
still proud and coldly. The revulsion within her was not tending to
soften her. Everyone seemed hateful.

"Nothing. You know what I wished you to know. You can inquire about me
if you like. My husband was Colonel Glasher."

"Then I will go," said Gwendolen, moving away with a ceremonious
inclination, which was returned with equal grace.

In a few minutes Gwendolen was in the beech grove again but her party
had gone out of sight and apparently had not sent in search of her, for
all was solitude till she had reached the avenue pointed out by the
warden. She determined to take this way back to Green Arbor, which she
reached quickly; rapid movements seeming to her just now a means of
suspending the thoughts which might prevent her from behaving with due
calm. She had already mad