thrown by the vine outside? And was that
sound nothing but the stirring of the rising wind of dawn against the
open casement window? Or----

'_My God!_'

The squire fled downstairs. He gained his chair again. He sat upright an
instant, impressing on himself, with sardonic vindictive force, some of
those truisms as to the action of mind on body, of brain-process on
sensation, which it had been part of his life's work to illustrate. The
philosopher had time to realise a shuddering fellowship of weakness with
his kind, to see himself as a helpless instance of an inexorable law,
before he fell back in his chair; a swoon, born of pitiful human
terror--terror of things unseen--creeping over heart and brain.

BOOK V

ROSE

CHAPTER XXXI

It was a November afternoon. London lay wrapped in rainy fog. The
atmosphere was such as only a Londoner can breathe with equanimity, and
the gloom was indescribable.

Meanwhile, in defiance of the Inferno outside, festal preparations were
being made in a little house on Campden Hill. Lamps were lit; in the
drawing-room chairs were pushed back; the piano was open, and a violin
stand towered beside it; chrysanthemums were everywhere; an invalid lady
in a 'best cap' occupied the sofa; and two girls were flitting about,
clearly making the last arrangements necessary for a 'musical
afternoon.'

The invalid was Mrs. Leyburn, the girls, of course, Rose and Agnes. Rose
at last was safely settled in her longed-for London, and an artistic
company, of the sort her soul loved, was coming to tea with her.

Of Rose's summer at Burwood very little need be said. She was conscious
that she had not borne it very well. She had been off-hand with Mrs.
Thornburgh, and had enjoyed one or two open skirmishes with Mrs. Seaton.
Her whole temper had been irritating and irritable--she was perfectly
aware of it. Towards her sick mother, indeed, she had controlled
herself; nor, for such a restless creature, had she made a bad nurse.
But Agnes had endured much, and found it all the harder because she was
so totally in the dark as to the whys and wherefores of her sister's
moods.

Rose herself would have scornfully denied that any whys and
wherefores--beyond her rooted dislike of Whindale--existed. Since her
return from Berlin, and especially since that moment when, as she was
certain, Mr. Langham had avoided her and Catherine at the National
Gallery, she had been calmly certain of her own heart