"You ought to know better, David Dalziel. You ought to know that Mr. Roy
had not an atom of selfishness or meanness in him--that he would be the
last man in the world to compromise any girl. If he chooses to marry
Janetta, or any one else, he has a perfect right to do it, and I for one
will not try to hinder him."

"Then you will not stand by me any more?"

"Not if you are blind and unfair. You may die of love, though I don't
think you will; people don't do it nowadays" (there was a slightly bitter
jar in the voice): "but love ought to make you all the more honorable,
clear-sighted, and just. And as to Mr. Roy--"

She might have talked to the winds, for David was not listening. He had
heard the click of the garden gate, and turned round with blazing eyes.

"There he is again! I can't stand it, Miss Williams. I give you fair
warning I can't stand it. He has walked home with them, and is waiting
about at the laurel bush, mooning after them. Oh, hang him!"

Before she had time to speak the young man was gone. But she had no fear
of any very tragic consequences when she saw the whole party standing
together--David talking to Janetta, Mr. Roy to Helen, who looked so
fresh, so young, so pretty, almost as pretty as Janetta. Nor did Mr.
Roy, pleased and animated, look so very old.

That strange clear-sightedness, that absolute justice, of which Fortune
had just spoken, were qualities she herself possessed to a remarkable,
almost a painful, degree. She could not deceive herself, even if she
tried. The more cruel the sight, the clearer she saw it; even as now she
perceived a certain naturalness in the fact that a middle-aged man so
often chooses a young girl in preference to those of his own generation,
for she brings him that which he has not; she reminds him of what he used
to have; she is to him like the freshness of spring, the warmth of
summer, in his cheerless autumn days. Sometimes these marriages are not
unhappy--far from it; and Robert Roy might ere long make such a marriage.
Despite poor David's jealous contempt, he was neither old nor ugly, and
then he was rich.

The thing, either as regarded Helen, or some other girl of Helen's
standing, appeared more than possible--probable; and if so, what then?

Fortune looked out once, and saw that the little group at the laurel bush
were still talking; then she slipped up stairs into her own room and
bolted the door.

The first thing that she did was to go s