he glass. You miss a lot, I can tell you. She was the prettiest
little baggage I've set eyes on for years. And she was not of an iron
virtue. But she wouldn't look at a little thing like me. Can't think
why. Come, now, don't look so demure. We aren't all plaister saints like
you. _I'm_ not, in spite of my Madonna face. Wasn't that the truth? The
Marchesa story is for the gallery. But you and I are behind the scenes.
Mum's the word. But wasn't that why Carstairs was hanging about the
house after everyone else had gone just for the same reason that I
was--to get a word with that little hussy?"

At that moment a tall, middle-aged man came into the room, and Lord
John's roving eye fell upon him. He sprang to his feet.

"Lossiemouth," he said, seizing the latter's unwilling hand. "Why,
you're the very man I wanted to see. Congratulations, my dear chap. All
my heart. Ship come in, and ancestral halls, and going to be married
too, all in one fell swoop. Know Miss Bellairs a little. Jumped with her
in the same skipping rope in childhood's happy hours, danced with her at
her first ball. Madly in love with her. Never seen her since."

Wentworth escaped.

The chamber of his soul had been long in readiness, swept and garnished
for the restless spirit that had returned to it--not alone.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Est-il indispensable, qu'on s'eleve a un point d'ou le
devoir n'apparaisse plus comme un choix de nos sentiments
les plus nobles, mais comme une silencieuse necessite de
toute notre nature.

The following afternoon Fay was sitting in the little morning-room at
Priesthope, trying to write a letter, a long, long letter. Wentworth's
last note to her, just arrived by the second post, was open before her,
telling her that he could not return for two days. And then the door
opened gently and he was before her.

She turned a white, miserable face towards the door. Then as she
suddenly recognised him the colour rushed to her face, and she flew to
him with a cry and locked him in her arms, kissing his shoulder, his
coat, his hands.

He was thunderstruck. Could a few days' absence so profoundly move these
delicate, emotional creatures, whom an all-wise Providence had made
almost too susceptible to masculine charm! He had never seen Fay like
this. But then, he had never seen anything like anything. She withdrew
herself suddenly, and stood a little apart, her face and neck one
carnation of soft shame.

"But yo