etters themselves held sometimes little more than affectionate
commentary upon her own.

That Guy was making his way and that he would eventually return to
her were practical certainties in her young mind. If his letters
contained little to support this belief, she yet never questioned
it for a moment. Guy was the sort to get on. She was sure of it.
And he was worth waiting for. Oh, she could afford to be patient
for Guy. She did not, moreover, believe that her father would hold
out for ever. Also, and secretly this thought buoyed her up in
rare moments of depression, in another two years--when she was
twenty-five--she would inherit some money from her mother. It was
not a very large sum, but it would be enough to render her
independent. It would very greatly increase her liberty of action.
She had little doubt that the very fact of it would help to
overcome her father's prejudices and very considerably modify his
attitude.

So, in a fashion, she had during the past three years come to
regard her twenty-fifth birthday as a milestone in her life. She
would be patient till it came, but then--at last--if circumstances
permitted, she would take her fate into her own hands, She
would--at last--assume the direction of her own life.

So she had planned, but so it was not to be. Her fate had already
begun to shape itself in a fashion that was little to her liking.
Travelling with her father in the North earlier in the summer, she
had met with a slight accident which had compelled her to make the
acquaintance of a lady staying at the same hotel whom she had
disliked at the outset and always sought to avoid. This lady, Mrs.
Emmott, was a widow with no settled home. Profiting by
circumstances she had attached herself to Sylvia and her father,
and now she was the latter's wife.

How it had come about, even now Sylvia scarcely realized. The
woman's intentions had barely begun to dawn upon her before they
had become accomplished fact. Her father's attitude throughout had
amazed her, so astoundingly easy had been his capture. He was
infatuated, possibly for the first time in his life, and no
influence of hers could remove the spell.

Sylvia's feelings for Mrs. Emmott passed very rapidly from dislike
to active detestation. Her iron strength of will, combined with an
almost blatant vulgarity, gave the girl a sense of being borne down
by an irresistible weight. Very soon her aversion became such that
it was impos