a part of the scheme in
the consummation of which she had spent her married life and her whole
indomitable energy, losing actually her own identity in the process,
and becoming an inexorable machine. That scheme was the holding
together of Stoke Revel for the de Tracys, the maintenance of family
dignity and power, the pre-eminence of a race that had always ruled.
The river beneath her, carrying her to the fulfilment of her duty,
the noble river, widening to the sea, subject to its tides and made
turbulent by its storms, typified to Mrs. de Tracy only the
greatness of Stoke Revel. From its banks the de Tracys had sent out,
generation after generation, men who had commanded fleets, who
had upheld the national honour upon the farthest seas, very often at
the cost of life. There was no sacrifice of herself at which Mrs.
de Tracy would have hesitated in upholding this ideal, no sacrifice
of others, either. What was Lizzie Prettyman in comparison? A bag
of old bones, fit for nothing but the workhouse!

"A little faster, William," said the widow, sitting upright in the
stern, and William the footman bent to his oars, the beads of
perspiration standing on his brow. When Mrs. de Tracy stepped out upon
the pier, she had to be reminded where the Prettyman cottage was.

"You'll know it by the plum tree, ma'am," said William respectfully,
"everybody does."

It was not far off on the river side. The tide had ebbed and left a
stretch of muddy foreshore in front of it, where the rotting poles for
hanging the fishing nets out to dry stood gauntly up. Mrs. de Tracy
approached the steps, which merged into the flagged path before the
door, and paused to survey the property she intended to part with. She
had no eye for the picturesque. A few white petals from the blossoming
plum tree, scattered by the breeze, fell upon her black bonnet and
shoulders. A faint scent of honey came from it and the hum of bees,
for the day was warm. The tumble-down condition of the cottage engaged
Mrs. de Tracy's attention.

"And for this," she thought scornfully, "a man will give hundreds of
pounds! There's truth in the adage that a fool and his money are soon
parted!"

She mounted the steps that led up to the patch of garden, her keen,
cold eyes everywhere at once. "A cat can't sneeze without she 'ears
'im!" her villagers at Stoke Revel were wont to say, disappearing into
their houses as rabbits into their burrows at sight of a terrier.

Old Elizabeth