is old pupil had given
his views about women and their place in the scheme of things. Not one
must expect a man to be faithful to her, were she wife or mistress, he
had said. So starting heavily handicapped in the role of his secret and
unacknowledged wife, Halcyone would stand a very poor chance of
happiness. Cheiron pictured things--John Derringham flattered and
courted by the world and surrounded by adoring woman, while Halcyone sat
at home in some quiet corner and received the scraps of his attentions
that were left.

No! decidedly he would have no hand in aiding the sorry affair.

So he used his influence and even a little cunning in preventing
Halcyone from writing to her lover. He was too ill yet to be troubled,
and she must wait until he should send some message to her.

"You do not want Mrs. Cricklander to read your letter, child," he said,
when she timidly suggested one day that it would seem kinder if she
wrote to say she was concerned at the accident to her old friend.--The
sad comedy was still kept up between them.--And Halcyone had stiffened.
No, indeed! not that! She was woman enough in spite of the ennobling and
broadening effects of her knowledge of nature, to feel the stab of
jealous pain, though she had resolutely crushed from her thoughts the
insinuation she had read of in the first notice of the disaster--about
Mrs. Cricklander's interest in her lover. Her pride took fire. Certainly
until he could receive letters and read them himself, she must wait.
Cheiron would, of course, inform her when that time came. A doubt of
John Derringham's loyalty to her never even cast its shadow upon her
soul, nor a suspicion that he could doubt her either.

All these things were the frosts and rains of their winter, but the
springtime would come and the glorious sun and flowers.

She was growing accustomed to London and the life of continual bustle,
and was almost grateful for it all as it kept her from thinking.

Her stepfather and his wife mixed in a rising half-set of society where
many people who were not fools came, and a number who were, but to
Halcyone they all seemed a weariness. No one appeared to see anything
straightly, and they seemed to be taken up with pursuits that could not
divert or interest a cat. She saw quite a number of young men at dinners
and was taken to the theater and suppers at the fashionable restaurants,
and these entertainments she loathed. She was too desperately unhappy
underneat