he asked her with a tone of question in his voice whether Lionel
and that odious wife of his could possibly expect to be forgiven, Mrs.
Ogilvie raised her eyebrows and said simply, 'I do not know what
forgiveness means.' She paid no attention to the vulgar gossip which
her sister-in-law tried to attach to her name, and Greville Monsen had
either got over his disappointment, or was sufficiently attached to his
former fiancee to forgive her her treatment of him. He came to the
house on terms of intimate friendship, and continued to do so even
after Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie's busy tongue had spoken.

Mrs. Ogilvie was not affected by gossip, nor moved by public opinion.
To have altered her conduct, even by a hair's-breadth, because it was
not generally approved would have seemed to her an absurdity; but those
who offended her were not given the opportunity of doing so twice. To
have had small quarrels followed by reconciliations would have been
impossible to her. Very few things were worth quarrelling about at
all, still fewer worth forgiving! Mrs. Ogilvie was cynically
indifferent to transgressions against herself; but when she sat in
judgment she always gave a life-sentence.

When Lionel died the feud between the brothers would probably have been
forgotten had it not been for the lamentable fact that his eldest son,
who had grown up into a faithful likeness of his worldly and
commonplace mother, took it into his head at the time of his father's
death to write to his uncle in a way which showed as much greed as
ill-breeding. The foolish young man's letter might have been put into
the fire and forgotten, for Colonel Ogilvie had loved his brother long
ago, and his death affected him deeply; but young Lionel made a mistake
when he referred to the fact that Colonel and Mrs. Ogilvie were
childless, and alluded to his own prospects. This put an end for ever
to all friendly intercourse between the uncle and nephew; Mrs. Ogilvie,
on her part, lifted her eyebrows again and said, 'The commercial mind
is very droll!' But just for one moment she locked her hands together
with an impulsive movement that had a whole life's tragedy and
disappointment in it.

It meant all the world to her and her husband that they should have
children. But Fate, who had prospered them in every other respect, had
denied them what they most desired. A son and heir, who was born a
year after the marriage, had died the same day. Two years later a
li