--at Tilda this time.

"Will you wear anything on your hair, m'm?" asked the girl, smiling
shyly in return.

Sophy considered, looking at the curve of her head from different angles
in a little hand-glass.

"No," she said, at last; "just the pearls to-night."

Her hair, dark and richly shaded like a breadth of veined mahogany, was
drawn loosely back into a big, shining knot low on her neck. Her
eyebrows were darker than her hair, long, slender, and straight. When
she laughed or smiled her eyes too grew long and slender.

She glanced at the pearls that the girl was now clasping about her
throat. They had been a wedding-gift from her brother-in-law, Lord
Wychcote. Poor Gerald! She was fond of him. He was the only one of the
family who had been really nice to her. Yes, they were fond of each
other. She touched the cold, heavy pearls and thought pityingly of his
dark eyes so often full of pain. Then she thought of how Cecil sometimes
spoke brutally to him, and she shivered.

"A goose on your grave, m'm?" said Tilda. "Let me fetch a scarf."

She brought a scarf of old lace, delicate as the skeleton of an elm-leaf
left by caterpillars, and threw it over Sophy's shoulders. Then handed
her her fan, gloves, and handkerchief, and taking the white
evening-cloak on her arm, waited for her mistress to leave the room.

Sophy gave a last look over her shoulder as she turned from the mirror.
Yes, she liked the dark curve of her head unbroken by any
ornament--besides, she did not wish to wear anything that Cecil had
given her, to-night. The pink-and-white gown was three years old--had
been part of her trousseau. She had had it remodelled in the house by a
clever little seamstress.

She went slowly down the stairway, through the square white hall. The
Georgian house was simple and cheerful. Sophy especially liked the
Sheraton furniture and white panelling, because they reminded her of her
Virginia home "Sweet-Waters." How happy she could have been in a house
like this, if only.... Her eyes darkened. She stood still for a moment
in the middle of the stairway, and Tilda halted patiently behind her.
Then, before the girl could ask if anything were needed, she went on
again with her swift, light step, and passed across the hall into the
drawing-room.

As she had expected, her husband was there already. He was seated at one
end of a deep, chintz-covered sofa holding a book close to his bent face
and the light of a lamp that stood