er eyes it was to rest them on the
portrait of his mother. And she seemed to read in the sweet, sad eyes a
question--a question not to be put into words. Chiltern, following her
gaze, did not speak: for a space they looked at the portrait together,
and in silence....

From one end of the house to the other they went, Hugh reviving at the
sight of familiar objects a hundred memories of his childhood; and she
trying to imagine that childhood, so different from her own, passed
in this wonderful place. In the glass cases of the gun room, among the
shining, blue barrels which he had used in all parts of the world, was
the little shotgun his father had had made for him when he was twelve
years old. Hugh locked the door after them when they came out, and
smiled as he put the key in his pocket.

"My destroying days are over," he declared.

Honora put on a linen hat and they took the gravelled path to the
stables, where the horses, one by one, were brought out into the
courtyard for their inspection. In anticipation of this hour there was a
blood bay for Honora, which Chiltern had bought in New York. She gave
a little cry of delight when she saw the horse shining in the sunlight,
his nostrils in the air, his brown eyes clear, his tapering neck
patterned with veins. And then there was the dairy, with the
fawn-coloured cows and calves; and the hillside pastures that ran down
to the river, and the farm lands where the stubbled grain was yellowing.
They came back by the path that wound through the trees and shrubbery
bordering the lake to the walled garden, ablaze in the mellow sunlight
with reds and purples, salvias and zinnias, dahlias, gladioli, and
asters.

Here he left her for a while, sitting dreamily on the stone bench. Mrs.
Hugh Chiltern, of Grenoble! Over and over she repeated that name to
herself, and it refused somehow to merge with her identity. Yet was she
mistress of this fair domain; of that house which had sheltered them
race for a century, and the lines of which her eye caressed with a
loving reverence; and the Chiltern pearls even then lay hidden around
her throat.

Her thoughts went back, at this, to the gentle lady to whom they had
belonged, and whose look began again to haunt her. Honora's superstition
startled her. What did it mean, that look? She tried to recall where
she had seen it before, and suddenly remembered that the eyes of the
old butler had held something not unlike it. Compassionate--this was