new a point where he could look through the
glass and see whatever was taking place among the roses. He walked
swiftly across the turf to that point. He looked in and saw Maud,
whose back was turned toward him, talking as if she were pleading for
her life, while Farnham listened with a clouded brow. Sleeny stood
staring with stupid wonder while Maud laid her hand upon Farnham's
shoulder. At that moment he heard footsteps on the gravel walk at some
distance from him, and he looked up and saw Mrs. Belding approaching.
Confused at his attitude of espionage, he walked away from his post,
and, as he passed her, Mrs. Belding asked him if he knew where Mr.
Farnham was.

"Yes," he answered, "he's in there. Walk right in;" and in the midst of
his trouble of spirit he could hardly help chuckling at his own
cleverness as he walked, in his amazement, back to the conservatory.

While she was in the house, Maud had confined herself to the subject of
the vacancy in the library. She rushed at it, as a hunter at a hedge,
to get away from the other matter which had tormented her for a week.
When she found herself alone with Farnham she saw that it would be
"horrid" to say what she had so long been rehearsing. "Now I can get
that place, if you will help me. No earthly soul knows anything about
it, and Minnie said she would give me a good chance before she let it
out."

Farnham tried to show her the difficulties in the way. He was led by
her eagerness into a more detailed account of his differences with the
rest of the board than he had ever given to any one, a fuller narrative
than was perhaps consistent with entire prudence. Whenever he paused,
she would insist with a woman's disconcerting directness:

"But they don't know anything about it this time--they can't combine on
anybody. You can certainly get one of them."

Farnham still argued against her sanguine hopes, till he at last
affected her own spirits, and she grew silent and despondent. As she
rose to go, he also took his hat to return to the garden, where he had
left Sleeny, and they walked over the lawn together. As they approached
the rose-house, she thought of her former visit and asked to repeat it.
The warm breath of the flowers saluted her as she crossed the
threshold, bringing so vivid a reminiscence of the enchantment of that
other day, that there came with it a sudden and poignant desire to try
there, in that bewitched atmosphere, the desperate experiment which
woul