hs of an arm-chair: "I
have been rather suddenly asked by an invalid cousin to go to Europe
with her next week, and I can't go contentedly without being at peace
about our friends."

She paused, but Justine made no answer. In spite of her growing sympathy
for Mrs. Ansell she could not overcome an inherent distrust, not of her
methods, but of her ultimate object. What, for instance, was her
conception of being at peace about the Amhersts? Justine's own
conviction was that, as far as their final welfare was concerned, any
terms were better between them than the external harmony which had
prevailed during Amherst's stay at Lynbrook.

The subtle emanation of her distrust may have been felt by Mrs. Ansell;
for the latter presently continued, with a certain nobleness: "I am the
more concerned because I believe I must hold myself, in a small degree,
responsible for Bessy's marriage--" and, as Justine looked at her in
surprise, she added: "I thought she could never be happy unless her
affections were satisfied--and even now I believe so."

"I believe so too," Justine said, surprised into assent by the
simplicity of Mrs. Ansell's declaration.

"Well, then--since we are agreed in our diagnosis," the older woman went
on, smiling, "what remedy do you suggest? Or rather, how can we
administer it?"

"What remedy?" Justine hesitated.

"Oh, I believe we are agreed on that too. Mr. Amherst must be brought
back--but how to bring him?" She paused, and then added, with a singular
effect of appealing frankness: "I ask you, because I believe you to be
the only one of Bessy's friends who is in the least in her husband's
confidence."

Justine's embarrassment increased. Would it not be disloyal both to
Bessy and Amherst to acknowledge to a third person a fact of which Bessy
herself was unaware? Yet to betray embarrassment under Mrs. Ansell's
eyes was to risk giving it a dangerous significance.

"Bessy has spoken to me once or twice--but I know very little of Mr.
Amherst's point of view; except," Justine added, after another moment's
weighing of alternatives, "that I believe he suffers most from being cut
off from his work at Westmore."

"Yes--so I think; but that is a difficulty that time and expediency must
adjust. All _we_ can do--their friends, I mean--is to get them together
again before the breach is too wide."

Justine pondered. She was perhaps more ignorant of the situation than
Mrs. Ansell imagined, for since her talk with