ewthorpe's face, then surprised at the difference he
found in Annabel--this, too, of a kind that troubled him. He thought
her less beautiful than she had been. With no picture of her to aid
him, he had for long periods been unable to make her face really
present to his mind's eye--one of the sources of his painful debates
with himself. When it came, as faces do, at unanticipated moments, he
saw her as she looked in walking back with him from the lake-side, when
she declared that the taste of the rain was sweet. Is it not the best
of life, that involuntary flash of memory upon instants of the eager
past? Better than present joy, in which there is ever a core of
disappointment; better, far better, than hope, which cannot warm
without burning. Annabel was surpassingly beautiful as he knew her in
that brief vision. Beautiful she still was, but it was as if a new type
of loveliness had come between her and his admiration; he could regard
her without emotion. The journey from London had been one incessant
anticipation, tormented with doubt. Would her presence conquer him
royally, assure her dominion, convert his intellectual fealty to
passionate desire? He regarded her without emotion.

Yet Annabel was not so calm as she wished to be. Only by force of will
could she exchange greetings without evidence of more than friendly
pleasure. This irritated her, for up to an hour ago she had said that
his coming would in no way disturb her. When, after an hour's talk, she
left her father and the guest together, and went up to her room, the
first feeling she acknowledged to herself was one of disappointment.
Egremont had changed, and not, she thought, for the better. He had lost
something--perchance that freshness of purpose which had become him so
well. He seemed to talk of his undertakings less spontaneously, and in
a tone--she could not quite say what it was, but his tone perhaps
suggested the least little lack of sincerity. And her agitation when he
entered the room? It had meant nothing, nothing. Her nerves were weak,
that was all.

She wished she could shed tears. There was no cause for it, surely
none, save a physical need. Such a feeling was very strange to her.

They had luncheon; then, as his custom was, Mr. Newthorpe went apart to
rest for a couple of hours. Mrs. Ormonde was coming to dine; the hour
of the meal would be early, to allow of Egremont's return to town. In
the meantime the latter obtained Annabel's consent to a