and, for all their statuesque
beauty, the movement of her shoulders was like the shrug of a little
girl in her pinafore.

"And this Mr. Courtier," said Lord Dennis dryly: "Are you after him?"

"I'm after everything; didn't you know that, dear?"

"In reason, my child."

"In reason, of course--like poor Eusty!" She stopped. Harbinger himself
was standing there close by, with an air as nearly approaching reverence
as was ever to be seen on him. In truth, the way in which he was looking
at her was almost timorous.

"Will you sing that song I like so much, Lady Babs?"

They moved away together; and Lord Dennis, gazing after that magnificent
young couple, stroked his beard gravely.

CHAPTER X

Miltoun's sudden journey to London had been undertaken in pursuance of
a resolve slowly forming from the moment he met Mrs. Noel in the stone
flagged passage of Burracombe Farm. If she would have him and since last
evening he believed she would--he intended to marry her.

It has been said that except for one lapse his life had been austere,
but this is not to assert that he had no capacity for passion. The
contrary was the case. That flame which had been so jealously guarded
smouldered deep within him--a smothered fire with but little air to feed
on. The moment his spirit was touched by the spirit of this woman, it
had flared up. She was the incarnation of all that he desired. Her hair,
her eyes, her form; the tiny tuck or dimple at the corner of her mouth
just where a child places its finger; her way of moving, a sort of
unconscious swaying or yielding to the air; the tone in her voice, which
seemed to come not so much from happiness of her own as from an
innate wish to make others happy; and that natural, if not robust,
intelligence, which belongs to the very sympathetic, and is rarely found
in women of great ambitions or enthusiasms--all these things had twined
themselves round his heart. He not only dreamed of her, and wanted her;
he believed in her. She filled his thoughts as one who could never do
wrong; as one who, though a wife would remain a mistress, and though a
mistress, would always be the companion of his spirit.

It has been said that no one spoke or gossiped about women in Miltoun's
presence, and the tale of her divorce was present to his mind simply
in the form of a conviction that she was an injured woman. After his
interview with the vicar, he had only once again alluded to it, and
that in answer to