ays told her plainly there was one thing she
never would forgive.

Rhoda Marsh had become a good Christian in every respect but one. The
male rake reformed is rather tolerant; but the female rake reformed is,
as a rule, bitterly intolerant of female frailty; and Rhoda carried
this female characteristic to an extreme both in word and in deed. They
were only half-sisters, after all; and Mary knew that she would be cast
off forever if she deviated from virtue so far as to be found out.

Besides the general warning, there had been a special one. When she
read Mary's first letter from Huntercombe Hall Rhoda was rather taken
aback at first; but, on reflection, she wrote to Mary, saying she could
stay there on two conditions: she must be discreet, and never mention
her sister Rhoda in the house, and she must not be tempted to renew her
acquaintance with Richard Bassett. "Mind," said she, "if ever you speak
to that villain I shall hear of it, and I shall never notice you
again."

This was the galling present and the dark future which had made so
young and unsentimental a woman as Mary Wells think of suicide for a
moment or two; and it now deprived her of her rest, and next day kept
her thinking and brooding all the time her now leaden limbs were
carrying her through her menial duties.

The afternoon was sunny, and Sir Charles and Lady Bassett took their
usual walk.

Mary Wells went a little way with them, looking very miserable. Lady
Bassett observed, and said, kindly, "Mary, you can give me that shawl;
I will not keep you; go where you like till five o'clock."

Mary never said so much as "Thank you." She put the shawl round her
mistress, and then went slowly back. She sat down on the stone steps,
and glared stupidly at the scene, and felt very miserable and leaden.
She seemed to be stuck in a sort of slough of despond, and could not
move in any direction to get out of it.

While she sat in this somber reverie a gentleman walked up to the door,
and Mary Wells lifted her head and looked at him. Notwithstanding her
misery, her eyes rested on him with some admiration, for he was a model
of a man: six feet high, and built like an athlete. His face was oval,
and his skin dark but glowing; his hair, eyebrows, and long eyelashes
black as jet; his gray eyes large and tender. He was dressed in black,
with a white tie, and his clothes were well cut, and seemed
superlatively so, owing to the importance and symmetry of the figure