ut how tell Augustine that there had been
more than the clear impossibility; how tell him that deeper than
renouncement was recoil? To tell that would be a disloyalty to her
husband; it would be almost to accuse him; it would be to show Augustine
that something in her life was spoiled and that her husband had spoiled
it. So perplexed, so jaded, was she, so tossed by the conflicting
currents of her lesser plight, that the deeper fears were forgotten: she
was not conscious of being afraid of Augustine.

The rain had ceased next morning. The sky was crystalline; the wet earth
glittered in Autumnal sunshine.

Augustine went out for his ride and Amabel had her girls to read with.
There was a sense of peace for her in finding these threads of her life
unknotted, smooth and simple, lying ready to her hand.

When she saw Augustine at lunch he said that he had met Lady Elliston.

"She was riding with Marjory and her girl."

"Oh, she is back, then." Amabel was grateful to him for his everyday
tone.

"What is Lady Elliston's girl like?"

"Pretty; very; foolish manners I thought; Marjory looked bewildered by
her."

"The manners of girls have changed, I fancy, since my day; and she isn't
a boy-girl, like our nice Marjory, either?"

"No; she is a girl-girl; a pretty, forward, conceited girl-girl," said
the ruthless Augustine. "Lady Elliston is coming to see you this
afternoon; she asked me to tell you; she says she wants a long talk."

Amabel's weary heart sank at the news.

"She is coming soon after lunch," said Augustine.

"Oh--dear--"--. She could not conceal her dismay.

"But you knew that you were to see her again;--do you mind so much?"
said Augustine.

"I don't mind.--It is only;--I have got so out of the way of seeing
people that it is something of a strain."

"Would you like me to come in and interrupt your talk?" asked Augustine
after a moment.

She looked across the table at him. Still, in her memory, preoccupied
with the cruelty of his accusation, it was the anger rather than the
love of his parting words the other day that was the more real. He had
been hard in kindness, relentless in judgment, only not accusing her,
not condemning her, because his condemnation had fixed on the innocent
and not on the guilty--the horror of that, as well as the other horror,
was between them now, and her guilt was deepened by it. But, as she
looked, his eyes reminded her of something; was it of that fancied cry
within