ment is the
intensity of the dreamer's pain.'

And then he went on to reflect upon the long monotonous years spent in
that lonely house, shut in from the world by those everlasting hills.
Albeit the house was an ideal house, set in a landscape of infinite
beauty, the monotony must be none the less oppressive for a mind
burdened with dark memories, weighed down by sorrows which could seek no
relief from sympathy, which could never become familiarised by
discussion.

'I wonder that a woman of Lady Maulevrier's intellect should not have
better known how to treat her own malady,' thought Hammond.

Mr. Hammond inquired after her ladyship's health next morning, and was
told she was perfectly well.

'Grandmother is in capital spirits,' said Lady Lesbia. 'She is pleased
with the contents of yesterday's _Globe_. Lord Denyer, the son of one of
her oldest friends, has been making a great speech at Liverpool in the
Conservative interest, and her ladyship thinks we shall have a change of
parties before long.'

'A general shuffle of the cards,' said Maulevrier, looking up from his
breakfast. 'I'm sure I hope so. I'm no politician, but I like a row.'

'I hope you are a Conservative, Mr. Hammond,' said Lesbia.

'I had hoped you would have known that ever so long ago, Lady Lesbia.'

Lesbia blushed at his tone, which was almost a reproach.

'I suppose I ought to have understood from the general tenor of your
conversation,' she said; 'but I am terribly stupid about politics. I
take so little interest in them. I am always hearing that we are being
badly governed--that the men who legislate for us are stupid or wicked;
yet the world seems to go on somehow, and we are no worse.'

'It is just the same with sport,' said Maulevrier. 'Every rainy spring
we are told that all the young birds have been drowned, or that the
grouse-disease has decimated the fathers and mothers, and that we shall
have nothing to shoot; but when August comes the birds are there all the
same.'

'It is the nature of mankind to complain,' said Hammond. 'Cain and Abel
were the first farmers, and you see one of them grumbled.'

They were rather lively at breakfast that morning--Maulevrier's last
breakfast but one--for he had announced his determination of going to
Scotland next day. Other fellows would shoot all the birds if he dawdled
any longer. Mary was in deep despondency at the idea of his departure,
yet she laughed and talked with the rest. And perhaps L