ld
she could not eat: all she confessed to, when questioned by Mrs. Ashton,
was "a pain in her throat;" and Mr. Hillary was called in. Anne laughed:
there was nothing the matter with her, she said, and her throat was
better; she had strained it perhaps. The doctor was a wise doctor; his
professional visits were spent in gossip; and as to medicine, he sent her
a tonic, and told her to take it or not as she pleased. Only time, he
said to Mrs. Ashton--she would be all right in time; the summer heat was
making her languid.

The summer heat had nearly passed now, and perhaps some of the battle was
passing with it. None knew--let me repeat it--what that battle had been;
none ever can know, unless they go through it themselves. In Miss
Ashton's case there was a feature some are spared--her love had been
known--and it increased the anguish tenfold. She would overcome it if she
could only forget him; but it would take time; and she would come out of
it an altogether different woman, her best hope in life gone, her heart
dead.

"What brought him down here?" mentally questioned Mr. Hillary, in an
explosion of wrath, as he watched his visitor down the street. "It will
undo all I have been doing. He, and his wife too, might have had the
grace to keep away for this year at least. I loved him once, with all his
faults; but I should like to see him in the pillory now. It has told on
him also, if I'm any reader of looks. And now, Miss Anne, you go off from
Calne to-morrow an I can prevail. I only hope you won't come across him
in the meantime."

CHAPTER XXVI.

UNDER THE TREES.

It was the same noble-looking man Calne had ever known, as he went down
the road, throwing a greeting to one and another. Lord Hartledon was not
a whit less attractive than Val Elster, who had won golden opinions from
all. None would have believed that the cowardly monster Fear was for ever
feasting upon his heart.

He came to a standstill opposite the clerk's house, looked at it for
a moment, as if deliberating whether he should enter, and crossed the
road. The shades of evening had begun to fall whilst he talked with the
surgeon. As he advanced up the clerk's garden, some one came out of the
house with a rush and ran against him.

"Take care," he lazily said.

The girl--it was no other than Miss Rebecca Jones--shrank away when
she recognized her antagonist. Flying through the gate she rapidly
disappeared up the street. Lord Hartledon reached