!" Lady Adela cried, as she stepped out into the
garden.

"Isn't it?" said Lady Chaloner. "Look how amusin'," she continued. "Mr.
Wentworth and Mr. Rendel have come to luncheon too, quite by chance."

Lady Adela nodded to Wentworth, whom she was seeing every day, and bowed
to Rendel, whom she knew slightly. Then, as Rendel looked beyond her, he
saw who was coming out of the house in her wake--Lord Stamfordham,
followed by Philip Marchmont. Stamfordham, coming out into the dazzling
sunlight, did not at first see who was there. In that hurried, almost
imperceptible interval, Rendel had time to grasp that here was the
horrible reality upon him in the worst form in which it could have come.
He had wild visions of saying something, doing something, he knew not
what, instantly repressed by the Englishman's repugnance to a scene.
Then he pulled himself together, and simply stood and waited. And as he
waited he saw Stamfordham come up to the table with a pleased smile,
prepared to sit down on Lady Chaloner's right hand, next the seat into
which Lady Adela had dropped. Then Stamfordham suddenly saw the two men
still standing on the other side of the table, and recognised in one of
them Francis Rendel. A swift extraordinary change came over his face.
The genial content of the man who, having deliberately put all his usual
cares and preoccupations behind him was now, under the most favourable
conditions, prepared to enjoy a holiday in genial society, suddenly
disappeared. He involuntarily drew himself up, his face became hard and
stern; he again looked as Rendel had seen him look the last time they
had met. The mental agony of the younger man during that moment was
almost unendurable. What was going to happen next? As in a dream he
heard the comfortable voice of Lady Chaloner, who had never in her life,
probably, spoken with any misgivings, whose calm confidence in the
bending of contingency to her desires nothing had ever occurred to
shake.

"Will you sit down there, Lord Stamfordham? We have two new recruits to
our party, you see. I don't think I need introduce either of them."

Stamfordham remained standing for a moment; then he said quietly, but
very distinctly--

"I am afraid, Lady Chaloner, that I can't sit down at this table."

A sort of electric shock ran through the careless happy people who were
surrounding him. Rendel turned livid. Then he tried to speak. But no
words could come; mentally and physically alike he c