l and body traces which would never be
effaced; and sometimes Herrick could hardly believe that this cold,
cynical, bitter-tongued woman was indeed the gay Irish girl he had
married.

But in spite of everything she was his wife. And Herrick was not the man
to shirk an obligation which was so plainly marked as this. Although he
shrank inwardly from her constant recriminations, he never let her see
how he was wounded by her biting tongue; and to all her reproaches he
presented so serene and complacent a front that she sometimes desisted
from very weariness.

So the autumn days went on; and if Herrick felt sometimes that in spite
of the beautiful world around him, life was no longer full of "sweet
things," he never wavered in his resolve to do all in his power to make
up to Eva, for the misery she had endured behind those heartless prison
walls.

CHAPTER XX

"Toni, do you think it quite wise to go about so much with Mrs.
Herrick?"

It was Owen who asked the question one cold morning as the two sat at
breakfast; and Toni looked up with something like defiance in her bright
eyes.

"Why not, Owen? Oh, I know she has been--well, you know where--but she
is free again now; and it is very hard if one mistake is to dog her
footsteps wherever she goes for the rest of her life."

"It was a pretty serious mistake," Owen reminded her quietly, "and to
tell you the truth I hardly like you to go about so constantly with a
woman who did what she was proved to have done."

"Oh, don't be such a Pharisee, Owen." Toni spoke sharply and Owen
glanced at her in dismay. "I suppose someone has been saying something
to you. But I don't intend to give up Eva Herrick to please a lot of
spiteful old women like Lady Martin and Mrs. Madgwick."

"Certainly one or two people have commented on your friendship," said
Owen thoughtfully, "and I'm bound to say I don't like it myself. To
begin with Mrs. Herrick treats her husband abominably; and I should not
have thought you would have been attracted by her shallow, futile way of
talking."

"You forget I'm shallow and futile myself," said Toni with a faint,
bitter smile. "The gossips of the neighbourhood have long since decided
that I was an ignorant little fool who wasn't fit to be the mistress of
Greenriver; and I suppose it's a case of birds of a feather, isn't it?"

"Toni!" Owen's voice expressed bewilderment. "What on earth do you mean?
Who ever dared to say you weren't fit to be mis