he
had passed with him stretch out in retrospect like a long and miserable
life. It was over now, and her friends could not disguise their
estimation of the end as a blessed release. But peace had not come with
it. She was not impervious to remorse, regret, humiliation, for her
course. The sight of Bayne, the sound of his voice, had poignantly
revived the past, and if she had suffered woeful straits from wanton
cruelty, she could not deny to herself that she had been consciously,
carelessly, and causelessly cruel. In withdrawing herself to the library
she had thwarted certain feints of Mrs. Briscoe's designed to throw them
together in her hope of their reconciliation. Lillian had become very
definitely aware that this result was far alien to any expectation on
Bayne's part, and her cheeks burned with humiliation that she should for
one moment, with flattered vanity and a strange thrill about her heart,
have inclined to Mrs. Briscoe's fantastic conviction as to the motive of
his journey hither. Indeed, within his view she could now scarcely
maintain her poise and the incidental unconscious mien that the
conventions of the situation demanded. She welcomed the movement in the
folds of the curtaining mist that betokened a prospect of lifting and
liberating the house-bound coterie. Presently, as she wrote, she heard
the stir of the wind in the far reaches of the valley. The dense white
veil that swung from the zenith became suddenly pervaded with vague
shivers; then tenuous, gauzy pennants were detached, floating away in
great lengths; the sun struck through from a dazzling focus in a broad,
rayonnant, fibrous emblazonment of valley and range, and as she rose and
went to the window to note the weather signs she could not resist the
lure of escape. She had struggled all day with an eager desire to be out
of the house, removed from the constantly recurring chances of meeting
Bayne, quit of the sight of him. She instantly caught up her broad gray
hat with its flaunting red and gray ostrich plumes and called out to Mrs.
Briscoe a suggestion that they should repair to the vacant hotel for a
tramp on its piazzas, for it was the habit of the two ladies in rainy or
misty weather to utilize these long, sheltered stretches for exercise,
and many an hour they walked, on dreary days, in these deserted
precincts.

"I'll overtake you," was Mrs. Briscoe's rejoinder, and until then Lillian
had not noticed the employ of her hostess. The gard