he leafless branches?
And when did he sweep his rider on with such long free play of the
hind-quarters? Horse and rider shot into sight again, rounding the curve
of the avenue near the gates, and in a break of sunlight Justine saw the
glitter of chestnut flanks--and remembered that Impulse was the only
chestnut in the stables....

* * * * *

She went back to her seat and continued writing. Bessy had left a
formidable heap of bills and letters; and when this was demolished,
Justine had her own correspondence to despatch. She had heard that
morning from the matron of Saint Elizabeth's: an interesting "case" was
offered her, but she must come within two days. For the first few hours
she had wavered, loath to leave Lynbrook without some definite light on
her friend's future; but now Amherst's letter had shed that light--or
rather, had deepened the obscurity--and she had no pretext for lingering
on where her uselessness had been so amply demonstrated.

She wrote to the matron accepting the engagement; and the acceptance
involved the writing of other letters, the general reorganizing of that
minute polity, the life of Justine Brent. She smiled a little to think
how easily she could be displaced and transplanted--how slender were her
material impedimenta, how few her invisible bonds! She was as light and
detachable as a dead leaf on the autumn breeze--yet she was in the
season of sap and flower, when there is life and song in the trees!

But she did not think long of herself, for an undefinable anxiety ran
through her thoughts like a black thread. It found expression, now and
then, in the long glances she threw through the window--in her rising to
consult the clock and compare her watch with it--in a nervous snatch of
humming as she paced the room once or twice before going back to her
desk....

Why was Bessy so late? Dusk was falling already--the early end of the
cold slate-hued day. But Bessy always rode late--there was always a
rational answer to Justine's irrational conjectures.... It was the sight
of those chestnut flanks that tormented her--she knew of Bessy's
previous struggles with the mare. But the indulging of idle
apprehensions was not in her nature, and when the tea-tray came, and
with it Cicely, sparkling from a gusty walk, and coral-pink in her cloud
of crinkled hair, Justine sprang up and cast off her cares.

It cost her a pang, again, to see the lamps lit and the curtains
d