ood all this
was simply a parading of the girl before a number of rich and
marriageable men. Poor Harry Brandeth!

She recalled many marriages of friends and acquaintances. With strange
intensity of purpose she brought each one to mind, and thought
separately and earnestly over her. What melancholy facts this exercise
revealed! She could not recall one girl who was happy, perfectly
happy, unless it was Jane Silvey who ran off with and married a
telegraph operator. Jane was still bright-eyed and fresh, happy no
doubt in her little house with her work and her baby, even though her
people passed her by as if she were a stranger. Then Margaret
remembered with a little shock there was another friend, a bride who
had been found on her wedding night wandering in the fields. There had
been some talk, quickly hushed, of a drunken husband, but it had never
definitely transpired what had made her run out into the dark night.
Margaret recollected the time she had seen this girl's husband, when
he was drunk, beat his dog brutally. Then Margaret reflected on the
gossip she never wanted to hear, yet could not avoid hearing, over her
mother's tea-table; on the intimations and implications. Many things
she would not otherwise have thought of again, but they now recurred
and added their significance to her awakening mind. She was not keen
nor analytical; she possessed only an ordinary intelligence; she could
not trace her way through a labyrinth of perplexing problems; still,
suffering had opened her eyes and she saw something terribly wrong in
her mother's world.

Once more she stopped pacing her room, for a step in the hall arrested
her, and made her stand quivering, as if under the lash.

"I won't!" she breathed intensely. Swiftly and lightly she sped across
her room, opened a door leading to the balcony and went out, closing
the door behind her softly.

Mr. Maynard sat before the library fire with a neglected cigar between
his fingers. The events of the day had stirred him deeply. The cold
shock he had felt when he touched his daughter's cheek in the
accustomed good-night kiss remained with him, still chilled his lips.
For an hour he sat there motionless, with his eyes fixed on the dying
fire, and in his mind hope, doubt and remorse strangely mingled. Hope
persuaded him that Margaret was only a girl, still sentimental and
unpoised. Unquestionably she had made a good marriage. Her girlish
notions about romance and love must give