e should certainly refuse to marry
within the year--be standing at the altar in a "confection" of lilac and
white with Hugh; or would she be a miserable wife, moving ghostlike
about her house, in colored raiment, while a distant grave was always
white with flowers sent by a nameless friend of the dead? "How some one
must have loved him!" she imagined Hugh's aged mother saying. And once,
as that bereaved mother came in the dusk to weep beside the grave, did
she not see a shadowy figure start up, black-robed, from the
flower-laden sod, and, hastily drawing a thick veil over a beautiful,
despairing face, glide away among the trees? At this point Lady Newhaven
always began to cry. It was too heart-rending. And her mind in violent
recoil was caught once more, and broken on the same wheel. "Which?
_Which_?"

A servant entered.

"Would her ladyship see Miss West for a few minutes?"

"Yes," said Lady Newhaven, glad to be delivered from herself, if only by
the presence of an acquaintance.

"It is very charitable of you to see me," said Rachel. "Personally, I
think morning calls ought to be a penal offence. But I came at the
entreaty of a former servant of yours. I feel sure you will let me carry
some message of forgiveness to her, as she is dying. Her name is Morgan.
Do you remember her?"

"I once had a maid called Morgan," said Lady Newhaven. "She was drunken,
and I had to part with her in the end; but I kept her as long as I could
in spite of it. She had a genius for hair-dressing."

"She took your diamond heart pendant," continued Rachel. "She was never
found out. She can't return it, for, of course, she sold it and spent
the money. But now at last she feels she did wrong, and she says she
will die easier for your forgiveness."

"Oh! I forgive her," said Lady Newhaven, indifferently. "I often
wondered how I lost it. I never cared about it." She glanced at Rachel,
and added tremulously, "My husband gave it me."

A sudden impulse was urging her to confide in this grave, gentle-eyed
woman. The temptation was all the stronger because Rachel, who had only
lately appeared in society, was not connected with any portion of her
previous life. She was as much a chance acquaintance as a
fellow-passenger in a railway carriage.

Rachel rose and held out her hand.

"Don't go," whispered Lady Newhaven, taking her outstretched hand and
holding it.

"I think if I stay," said Rachel, "that you may say things you will
regret late