corresponding change in Owen Leath. The latter, when he came in sight,
had been laughing and talking unconcernedly with Effie; but as his eye
fell on Miss Viner his expression altered as suddenly as hers.

The change, for Darrow, was less definable; but, perhaps for that
reason, it struck him as more sharply significant. Only--just what did
it signify? Owen, like Sophy Viner, had the kind of face which seems
less the stage on which emotions move than the very stuff they work
in. In moments of excitement his odd irregular features seemed to grow
fluid, to unmake and remake themselves like the shadows of clouds on a
stream. Darrow, through the rapid flight of the shadows, could not seize
on any specific indication of feeling: he merely perceived that the
young man was unaccountably surprised at finding him with Miss
Viner, and that the extent of his surprise might cover all manner of
implications.

Darrow's first idea was that Owen, if he suspected that the conversation
was not the result of an accidental encounter, might wonder at his
step-mother's suitor being engaged, at such an hour, in private talk
with her little girl's governess. The thought was so disturbing that,
as the three turned back to the house, he was on the point of saying to
Owen: "I came out to look for your mother." But, in the contingency he
feared, even so simple a phrase might seem like an awkward attempt at
explanation; and he walked on in silence at Miss Viner's side. Presently
he was struck by the fact that Owen Leath and the girl were silent also;
and this gave a new turn to his thoughts. Silence may be as variously
shaded as speech; and that which enfolded Darrow and his two companions
seemed to his watchful perceptions to be quivering with cross-threads of
communication. At first he was aware only of those that centred in
his own troubled consciousness; then it occurred to him that an equal
activity of intercourse was going on outside of it. Something was in
fact passing mutely and rapidly between young Leath and Sophy Viner; but
what it was, and whither it tended, Darrow, when they reached the house,
was but just beginning to divine...

XVIII

Anna Leath, from the terrace, watched the return of the little group.

She looked down on them, as they advanced across the garden, from the
serene height of her unassailable happiness. There they were, coming
toward her in the mild morning light, her child, her step-son, her
promised hus