ere not in Society, it was so difficult to
find out! And there rose in her that almost brutal resentment, which
ferments very rapidly in those who from their youth up have been hedged
round with the belief that they and they alone are the whole of the
world. In this mood Lady Valleys passed the letter to her daughters.
They read, and in turn handed it to Bertie, who in silence returned it to
his mother.

But that evening, in the billiard-room, having manoeuvred to get him to
herself, Barbara said to Courtier:

"I wonder if you will answer me a question, Mr. Courtier?"

"If I may, and can."

Her low-cut dress was of yew-green, with, little threads of flame-colour,
matching her hair, so that there was about her a splendour of darkness
and whiteness and gold, almost dazzling; and she stood very still,
leaning back against the lighter green of the billiard-table, grasping
its edge so tightly that the smooth strong backs of her hands quivered.

"We have just heard that Miltoun is going to ask Mrs. Noel to marry him.
People are never mysterious, are they, without good reason? I wanted you
to tell me--who is she?"

"I don't think I quite grasp the situation," murmured Courtier. "You
said--to marry him?"

Seeing that she had put out her hand, as if begging for the truth, he
added: "How can your brother marry her--she's married!"

"Oh!"

"I'd no idea you didn't know that much."

"We thought there was a divorce."

The expression of which mention has been made--that peculiar white-hot
sardonically jolly look--visited Courtier's face at once. "Hoist with
their own petard! The usual thing. Let a pretty woman live alone--the
tongues of men will do the rest."

"It was not so bad as that," said Barbara dryly; "they said she had
divorced her husband."

Caught out thus characteristically riding past the hounds Courtier bit
his lips.

"You had better hear the story now. Her father was a country parson, and
a friend of my father's; so that I've known her from a child. Stephen
Lees Noel was his curate. It was a 'snap' marriage--she was only twenty,
and had met hardly any men. Her father was ill and wanted to see her
settled before he died. Well, she found out almost directly, like a good
many other people, that she'd made an utter mistake."

Barbara came a little closer.

"What was the man like?"

"Not bad in his way, but one of those narrow, conscientious pig-headed
fellows who make the most trying kind of