rd Mallow! Ah, you thought he would buy your horse, for love of the
rider. But you see constancy isn't one of that noble Irishman's
virtues. He loves and he rides away--when the lady won't have him, bien
entendu. No, Arion was sent up to Tattersall's, and disposed of in the
usual way. Some fellow bought him for a covert hack."

"I hope the man wasn't a heavy weight," exclaimed Vixen, almost in
tears.

She thought Rorie was horribly unfeeling.

"What does it matter? A horse must earn his salt."

"I had rather my poor pet had been shot, and buried in one of the
meadows at home," said Vixen plaintively.

"Captain Winstanley was too wise to allow that. Your poor pet fetched a
hundred and forty-five guineas under the hammer."

"I don't think it is very kind of you to talk of him so lightly," said
Vixen.

This was the only little cloud that came between them in all the
voyage. Long before sunset they were steaming into Southampton Water,
and the yellow light was still shining on the furzy levels, when the
brougham that contained Vixen and her fortunes drove along the road to
Lyndhurst.

She had asked the coachman for news of his mistress, and had been told
that Mrs. Winstanley was pretty much the same. The answer was in some
measure reassuring: yet Violet's spirits began to sink as she drew
nearer home, and must so soon find herself face to face with the truth.
There was a sadness too in that quiet evening hour; and the shadowy
distances seemed full of gloom, after the dancing waves, and the gay
morning light.

The dusk was creeping slowly on as the carriage passed the lodge, and
drove between green walls of rhododendron to the house. Captain
Winstanley was smoking his cigar in the porch, leaning against the
Gothic masonry, in the attitude Vixen knew so well of old.

"If my mother were lying in her coffin I daresay he would be just the
same," she thought bitterly.

The Captain came down to open the carriage-door. Vixen's first glance
at his face showed her that he looked worn and anxious.

"Is mamma very ill?" she asked tremulously.

"Very ill," he answered, in a low voice. "Mind, you are to do or say
nothing that can agitate her. You must be quiet and cheerful. If you
see a change you must take care to say nothing about it."

"Why did you leave me so long in ignorance of her illness? Why did you
not send for me sooner?"

"Your mother has only been seriously ill within the past few days. I
sent for you dir