mpossible to
smile--in Oxford. One lies as if under a tomb."

"Every place has its bad points," said Lady Dashwood. "It is important
to make the best of them."

"But I do not like to see Madame depressed by the climate here,"
continued Louise, obstinately, "and Madame has been depressed here
lately."

"Not at all," said Lady Dashwood. "You needn't worry, Louise; any one
who can stand India would find the climate of Oxford admirable. Now, as
soon as you have done my hair, I want you to go down to the
drawing-room, where you will find Mrs. Dashwood, and apologise to her
for my not coming down again. Say I have a letter that will take me some
time to answer. Bid her good night, also the Warden, who will be with
her, I expect."

Louise had been momentarily plunged into despair. She had been
unsuccessful all the way round. It looked as if the visit to Oxford was
to go on indefinitely, and as to the letter--well--Madame was
unfathomable--as she always was. She was English, and one must not
expect them to behave as if they had a heart.

But now her spirits rose! This message to the drawing-room! The Warden
was alone with Mrs. Dashwood! The Warden, this man of apparent
uprightness who was the seducer of the young! Lady Dashwood had
discovered his wickedness and dared not leave Mrs. Dashwood, a widow and
of an age (twenty-eight) when a woman is still young, alone with him. So
she, Louise, was sent down, _bien entendu_, to break up the
_tete-a-tete_!

Louise put down the brush and smiled to herself as she went down to the
drawing-room.

She, through her devotion to duty, had become an important instrument in
the hands of Providence.

When Lady Dashwood found herself alone, she took up her keys and jingled
them, unable to make up her mind.

She had only read the first two or three sentences of Belinda's letter;
she had only read--until the identity and meaning of the letter had
suddenly come to her.

She opened the drawer and took out the letter. Then she walked a few
steps in the room, thinking as she walked. No, much as she despised
Belinda, she could not read a private letter of hers. Perhaps, because
she despised her, it was all the more urgent that she should not read
anything of hers.

What Lady Dashwood longed to do was to have done with Belinda and never
see her or hear from her again. She wanted Belinda wiped out of the
world in which she, Lena Dashwood, moved and thought.

What was she to do with the le