e garden without another word. Blanche held her book
before her face until he had disappeared. Then it slipped from her
fingers. She looked hard into a cluster of roses, and she saw only two
figures--always the same figures. Her eyes were set, her face was wan and
old.

"The other woman!" she murmured to herself. "That is what I am. And
I can't live up to it. I ought to take poison, or get run over or
something, and I know very well I shan't. Bother the man! Why couldn't
he leave me alone?"

After dinner that evening she accepted her husband's nightly invitation
and walked with him for a little while. The others followed.

"How much longer can you stay away from England, Lawrence?" she asked
him.

"Oh--a fortnight, I should think," he answered. "I am not tied to any
particular date. You like it here, I hope?"

"Immensely! Are--our friends going to remain?"

"I haven't heard them say anything about moving on yet," he answered.

"Are you in love with the Duchess still, Lawrence?"

"Am I--Blanche!"

"Don't be angry! You made a mistake once, you know. Don't make another.
I'm not a jealous woman, and I don't ask much from you, but I'm your
wife. That's all!"

She turned and called to Hester. The little party rearranged itself.
Mannering found himself with Berenice.

"What was your wife saying to you?" she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"It was the beginning," he remarked.

Berenice sighed.

"It is a strange thing," she said, "but in this world no one can ever be
happy except at some one else's expense. It is a most unnatural law of
compensation. Shall we move on to-morrow?"

"The day after," he pleaded. "To-morrow we are going to Berneval."

She nodded.

"We are queer people, I think," she said. "I have been perfectly
satisfied this week simply to be with you. When it comes to an end
I should like it to come suddenly."

He thought of her words an hour later, when on his return to the hotel
they handed him a telegram. He passed it on at once to Lord Redford, and
glanced at his watch.

"Poor Cunningham," he said, "it was a short triumph for him. I must go
back to-night, or the first train to-morrow morning. The sitting member
for my division of Leeds died suddenly last night, Blanche," he said to
his wife. "I must be on the spot at once."

She rose to her feet.

"I will go and pack," she said.

Lady Redford followed her very soon. Clara and Sir Leslie had not yet
returned from their stroll.