was sitting shivering in a shawl, though the day
was hot.

"I've paved the way," nodded the old woman, in meaning tones. "And
there's one fortunate thing about Val: he is so truthful himself, one may
take him in with his eyes open."

Maude turned _her_ eyes upon her mother: very languid and unspeculative
eyes just then.

"I gave him a hint, Maude, that you had been unable to bring yourself to
like Hartledon, but had fixed your mind on a younger son. Later, we'll
let him suspect who the younger son was."

The words aroused Maude; she started up and stood staring at her mother,
her eyes dilating with a sort of horror; her pale cheeks slowly turning
crimson.

"I don't understand," she gasped; "I _hope_ I don't understand. You--you
do not mean that I am to try to like Val Elster?"

"Now, Maude, no heroics. I'll not see _you_ make a fool of yourself as
your sisters have done. He's not Val Elster any longer; he is Lord
Hartledon: better-looking than ever his brother was, and will make a
better husband, for he'll be more easily led."

"I would not marry Val for the whole world," she said, with strong
emotion. "I dislike him; I hate him; I never could be a wife to Val
Elster."

"We'll see," said the dowager, pushing up her front, of which she had
just caught sight in a glass.

"Thank Heaven, there's no fear of it!" resumed Maude, collecting her
senses, and sitting down again with a relieved sigh; "he is to marry Anne
Ashton. Thank Heaven that he loves her!"

"Anne Ashton!" scornfully returned the countess-dowager. "She might have
been tolerated when he was Val Elster, not now he is Lord Hartledon. What
notions you have, Maude!"

Maude burst into tears. "Mamma, I think it is fearfully indecent for you
to begin upon these things already! It only happened last night, and--and
it sounds quite horrible."

"When one has to live as I do, one has to do many things decent and
indecent," retorted the countess-dowager sharply. "He has had his hint,
and you've got yours: and you are no true girl if you suffer yourself now
to be triumphed over by Anne Ashton."

Maude cried on silently, thinking how cruel fate was to have taken one
brother and spared the other. Who--save Anne Ashton--would have missed
Val Elster; while Lord Hartledon--at least he had made the life of one
heart. A poor bruised heart now; never, never to be made quite whole
again.

Thus the dowager, in her blindness, began her plans. In her blindness! If
we