that she had brutally imposed on you only because she had known she
might impose on a woman with such a pair of eyes. I was angry and
sentimental at one and the same time. And to find you sitting by the
wayside, absolutely worn out with fatigue and in tears, moved me really
more than I had anticipated being moved. And when you mistook my meaning
and stood up, your nice eyes looking into mine in such ingenuous appeal
and fear and trouble, I have never forgotten it, my dear, and I never
shall."

His mood of sentiment did not sit easily upon him, but it meant a real
and interesting quite human thing.

Emily sat alone in the room and brooded over it as a mother might brood
over a new-born child. She was full of tremulous bliss, and, dwelling
with reverent awe upon the wonder of great things drawing nearer to her
every hour, wept for happiness as she sat.

* * * * *

The same afternoon Lady Maria Bayne arrived. She had been abroad taking,
in no dull fashion, various "cures," which involved drinking mineral
waters while promenading to the sounds of strains of outdoor music, and
comparing symptoms wittily with friends equal to amazing repartee in
connection with all subjects.

Dr. Warren was an old acquaintance, and as he was on the point of
leaving the house as she entered it she stopped to shake hands with him.

"It's rather unfortunate for a man when one can only be glad to see him
in the house of an enemy."

She greeted him with, "I must know what you are doing here. It's not
possible that Lady Walderhurst is fretting herself into fiddle-strings
because her husband chooses to have a fever in India."

"No, she is behaving beautifully in all respects. May I have a few
minutes' talk with you, Lady Maria, before you see her?"

"A few minutes' talk with me means something either amusing or
portentous. Let us walk into the morning-room."

She led the way with a rustle or silk petticoats and a suggestion of
lifted eyebrows. She was inclined to think that the thing sounded more
portentous than amusing. Thank Heaven! it was not possible for Emily to
have involved herself in annoying muddles. She was not that kind of
woman.

When she came out of the room some twenty minutes later she did not look
quite like herself. Her smart bonnet set less well upon her delicate
little old face, and she was agitated and cross and pleased.

"It was ridiculous of Walderhurst to leave her," she was sayin