to her imagination--Mrs.
Acton's imagination was a marvel--all that she had ever read of the most
stirring historical periods. But she had sent the Baroness a great many
quaintly-worded messages and a great many nosegays from her garden and
baskets of beautiful fruit. Felix had eaten the fruit, and the Baroness
had arranged the flowers and returned the baskets and the messages. On
the day that followed that rainy Sunday of which mention has been
made, Eugenia determined to go and pay the beneficent invalid a "visite
d'adieux;" so it was that, to herself, she qualified her enterprise.
It may be noted that neither on the Sunday evening nor on the Monday
morning had she received that expected visit from Robert Acton. To his
own consciousness, evidently he was "keeping away;" and as the Baroness,
on her side, was keeping away from her uncle's, whither, for several
days, Felix had been the unembarrassed bearer of apologies and regrets
for absence, chance had not taken the cards from the hands of design.
Mr. Wentworth and his daughters had respected Eugenia's seclusion;
certain intervals of mysterious retirement appeared to them, vaguely, a
natural part of the graceful, rhythmic movement of so remarkable a
life. Gertrude especially held these periods in honor; she wondered what
Madame M; auunster did at such times, but she would not have permitted
herself to inquire too curiously.

The long rain had freshened the air, and twelve hours' brilliant
sunshine had dried the roads; so that the Baroness, in the late
afternoon, proposing to walk to Mrs. Acton's, exposed herself to no
great discomfort. As with her charming undulating step she moved along
the clean, grassy margin of the road, beneath the thickly-hanging boughs
of the orchards, through the quiet of the hour and place and the rich
maturity of the summer, she was even conscious of a sort of luxurious
melancholy. The Baroness had the amiable weakness of attaching herself
to places--even when she had begun with a little aversion; and now, with
the prospect of departure, she felt tenderly toward this well-wooded
corner of the Western world, where the sunsets were so beautiful and
one's ambitions were so pure. Mrs. Acton was able to receive her; but on
entering this lady's large, freshly-scented room the Baroness saw that
she was looking very ill. She was wonderfully white and transparent,
and, in her flowered arm-chair, she made no attempt to move. But she
flushed a little--