tly hostile;
and, try as she might, she could not rid herself of the discomfort of
it, and the perplexity.

She spoke about other things; he responded in his impassive manner.
Presently she turned her horse and Quarrier wheeled his, facing a warm,
fine rain, slanting thickly from the south.

His silky, Vandyke beard was all wet with the moisture. She noticed it,
and unbidden arose the vision of the gun-room at Shotover: Quarrier's
soft beard wet with rain; the phantoms of people passing and repassing;
Siward's straight figure swinging past, silhouetted against the glare of
light from the billiard-room. And here she made an effort to efface the
vision, shutting her eyes as she rode there in the rain. But clearly
against the closed lids she saw the phantoms passing--spectres of dead
hours, the wraith of an old happiness masked with youth and wearing
Siward's features!

She must stop it! What was all this crowding in upon her as she rode
forward through the driving rain--all this resurgence of ghosts long
laid, long exorcised? Had the odour of the rain stolen her senses,
awakening memory of childish solitude? Was it that which was drugging
her with remembrance of Siward and the rattle of rain in the bay-window
above the glass-roofed swimming-pool?

She opened her eyes wide, staring straight ahead into the thickening
rain; but her thoughts were loosened now, tuned to the increasing rhythm
of her heart: and she saw him seated there, his head buried in his hands
as she stole through the dim corridors to her first tryst; saw him
look up; saw herself beside him among the cushions; tasted again the
rose-petals that her lips had stripped from the blossoms; saw once more
the dawn of something in his steady eyes; felt his arm about her, his
breath--

Her horse, suddenly spurred, bounded forward through the rain, and she
rode breathless, with lips half parted, as if afraid, turning her head
to look behind--as though she could outride the phantom clinging to her
stirrup, masked like youth, wearing the shadowy eyes of Love!

In her drenched habit, standing before her dressing-room fire, she
heard her maid soliciting entrance, and paid no heed, the door being
locked--as though a spectre could be bolted out of rooms and houses!
Pacing the floor, restless, annoyed, and dismayed by turns, she flung
her wet skirt and coat from her, piece by piece, and stood for awhile,
like some slender youth in riding breeches and shirt, facing t