d, she stood without resisting.

"I want you," he said; "I mean to keep you."

Then, suddenly letting her go, he covered his eyes with his hands.
That frightened her most--it was so unlike him. Not till now had she
understood between what terrifying forces she was balancing. She did
not speak, but her face grew white. From behind those hands he uttered
a sound, not quite like a human noise, turned sharply, and went out.
She dropped back into the chair before her mirror, overcome by the most
singular feeling she had ever known; as if she had lost everything,
even her love for Lennan, and her longing for his love. What was it all
worth, what was anything worth in a world like this? All was loathsome,
herself loathsome! All was a void! Hateful, hateful, hateful! It was
like having no heart at all! And that same evening, when her husband had
gone down to the House, she wrote to Lennan:

"Our love must never turn to earthiness as it might have this afternoon.
Everything is black and hopeless. HE suspects. For you to come here is
impossible, and too dreadful for us both. And I have no right to ask you
to be furtive, I can't bear to think of you like that, and I can't bear
it myself. I don't know what to do or say. Don't try to see me yet. I
must have time, I must think."

XIII

Colonel Ercott was not a racing man, but he had in common with others
of his countrymen a religious feeling in the matter of the Derby. His
remembrances of it went back to early youth, for he had been born and
brought up almost within sound of the coaching-road to Epsom. Every
Derby and Oaks day he had gone out on his pony to watch the passing of
the tall hats and feathers of the great, and the pot-hats and feathers
of the lowly; and afterwards, in the fields at home, had ridden races
with old Lindsay, finishing between a cow that judged and a clump of
bulrushes representing the Grand Stand.

But for one reason or another he had never seen the great race, and the
notion that it was his duty to see it had now come to him. He proposed
this to Mrs. Ercott with some diffidence. She read so many books--he did
not quite know whether she would approve. Finding that she did, he added
casually:

"And we might take Olive."

Mrs. Ercott answered dryly:

"You know the House of Commons has a holiday?"

The Colonel murmured:

"Oh! I don't want that chap!"

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Ercott, "you would like Mark Lennan."

The Colonel looked at her mo