to
mislead her own mother, the world ought to come to an end."

Maude took no notice.

There happened to be some water standing on a table, and the dowager
poured out a tumblerful and drank it, though not accustomed to the
beverage. Untying her bonnet-strings she sat down, a little calmer.

"Perhaps you'll explain this at your convenience, Maude."

"There is nothing to explain," was the answer. "What I told you was the
truth. The action _has_ been entered by the Ashtons."

"And I tell you that the action has not."

"I assure you that it has," returned Maude. "I told you of the evening we
first had notice of it, and the damages claimed; do you think I invented
that, or went to sleep and dreamt it? If Val has gone down once to that
Temple about it, he has gone fifty times. He would not go for pleasure."

The countess-dowager sat fanning herself quietly: for her daughter's
words were gaining ground.

"There's a mistake somewhere, Maude, and it is on your side and not mine.
I'll lay my life that no action has been entered by Dr. Ashton. The man
spoke the truth; I can read the truth when I see it as well as anyone:
his face flushed with pain and anger at such a thing being said of him.
It may not be difficult to explain this contradiction."

"Do you think not?" returned Maude, her indifference exciting the
listener to anger.

"_I_ should say Hartledon is deceiving you. If any action is entered
against him at all, it isn't that sort of action; or perhaps the young
lady is not Miss Ashton, but some other; he's just the kind of man to be
drawn into promising marriage to a dozen or two. Very clever of him to
palm you off with this tale: a man may get into five hundred troubles not
convenient to disclose to his wife."

Except that Lady Hartledon's cheek flushed a little, she made no answer;
she held firmly--at least she thought she held firmly--to her own side
of the case. Her mother, on the contrary, adopted the new view, and
dismissed it from her thoughts accordingly.

Maude went to church in the evening, sitting alone in the great pew, pale
and quiet. Anne Ashton was also alone; and the two whilom rivals, the
triumphant and the rejected, could survey each other to their heart's
content.

Not very triumphant was Maude's feeling. Strange perhaps to say, the
suggestion of the old dowager, like instilled poison, was making its way
into her very veins. Her thoughts had been busy with the matter ever
since. One posit