d flowers on it. Mr. Hamilton was shut safely in his study;
I was aware of that fact, as I had heard him tell Gladys that night
that he had a medical article to write that he was anxious to finish.
Miss Darrell would be reading novels in the drawing-room; there was no
fear of meeting any one; but some instinct--for we have no word in our
human language to express the divine impetus that sways our inward
promptings--induced me to take refuge in the dark asphalt path that
skirted the meadow and led to Atkinson's cottage and the kitchen-garden.

I was unhappy,--in a mood that savoured of misanthropy; my fate was
growing cross-grained, enigmatical. Mr. Hamilton's frown had struck
cold to my heart; I was beginning to lose patience (to lose hope was
impossible),--to ask myself why he remained silent.

'If he has anything against me,--and his manner tells me that he
has,--why does he not treat me with frankness?' I thought. 'He calls
himself my friend, and yet he reposes no trust in me. He breaks my heart
with his changed looks and coldness, and yet he gives me no reason for
his injustice. I would not treat my enemy so, and yet all the time I feel
he loves me.' And as I paced under the dark hanging shrubs I felt there
was nothing morbid or untrue in those lines, that 'to be wroth with one
that we love does work like madness on the brain,' and that I was growing
angry with Mr. Hamilton.

I had just reached a dark angle where the path dips a little, when I was
startled by hearing voices close to me. There was a seat screened by some
laurel-bushes that went by the name of 'Conspiracy Corner,' dating back
from the time when Gladys and Eric were children and had once hidden some
fireworks among the bushes. It was there that Claude Hamilton had
proposed to Lady Betty, when Gladys had found them, and the two young
creatures had appealed to her to help them. The seat was so hidden and
secluded by shrubs that you could pass without seeing its occupants,
unless a little bit of fluttering drapery or the gleam of some gold chain
or locket caught one's eye. I remembered once being very much startled
when Lady Betty popped out suddenly on me as I passed.

I was just retracing my steps, with a sense of annoyance at finding my
privacy invaded, when a sentence in Leah's voice attracted my attention:

'I tell you he was driving with them this afternoon: I heard Miss Garston
tell the master so. It is no good you fretting and worrying yourself