itude, and there must
have been many similar occasions when calmness and self-restraint were
needed, and had never failed.

Was it not rather wonderful of Sue? The weakness was there, but she had
had strength to hide it. Maud and Sybil knew nothing of it; no one knew;
least of all the man himself.

And apparently Sue was content to have it so,--here was another marvel;
she loved and asked for nothing in return. She could go quietly on week
after week, month after month, hugging her secret,--yet its power was
such that Leo herself trembled to recall the hour that so nearly laid
it bare. It was terrible to see Sue blanch and blench; to watch the
fluttering of her lace jabot as her bosom heaved beneath. She trembled
as she had never trembled at any emotions of her own.

She perceived that love was a strange, unknown force of which she,
happily wooed, happily wedded, and sorrowfully widowed, nevertheless
knew nothing. She had loved her husband--indeed she had loved him; he
had been uniformly kind and pleasant and indulgent towards her, and she
had honestly reciprocated his attachment,--but sometimes, sometimes she
had wondered? She had heard, she had read of--more: she had never felt
it.

And vague fancies had been put aside as disloyal; reasoned away as
disturbing elements of a very real if sober felicity. She was married;
and it was wrong and wicked to imagine how things might have been if she
had never seen Godfrey, and was going about free and unfettered like
other girls?

She did not, of course she did not, wish to be free, and was ashamed to
find the thought obtruding itself; but there had been moments--and these
recurred to her now.

How strange it must be to feel as--as Sue did, for instance? To start
at the sound of a footstep, to thrill at a voice; to be wrapt in a
golden haze--oh, she knew all that could be told about that curious,
fantastic, elusive mystery, which was yet a sealed book as regarded
herself.

And was it not a little hard that it should be so? Had something been
missed out of her nature? Was she really formed without warmth, ardour,
sensibility? A smile played upon her lips.

Was she then not inviting? Was there nothing desirable, attractive,
alluring--nothing to create in another the feeling which might have
awakened her own slumbering soul?

It might be so, and yet----

Again her thoughts reverted to Sue; to the staid, gaunt elderly
Sue,--and with a new and sharp sensation. Sue had