ence with the squire a binding obligation, and he was to-night
chiefly anxious to go to Madame de Netteville's that he might write an
account of it to Murewell.

Still the squire's talk, and his own glimpse of her at Murewell, had
made him curious to see more of the woman herself. The squire's ways of
describing her were always half approving, half sarcastic. Robert
sometimes imagined that he himself had been at one time more under her
spell than he cared to confess. If so, it must have been when she was
still in Paris, the young English widow of a man of old French family,
rich, fascinating, distinguished, and the centre of a small _salon_,
admission to which was one of the social blue ribbons of Paris.

Since the war of 1870 Madame de Netteville had fixed her headquarters in
London, and it was to her house in Hans Place that the squire wrote to
her about the Elsmeres. She owed Roger Wendover debts of various kinds,
and she had an encouraging memory of the young clergyman on the terrace
at Murewell. So she promptly left her cards, together with the
intimation that she was at home always on Friday evenings.

'I have never seen the wife,' she meditated, as her delicate jewelled
hand drew up the window of the brougham in front of the Elsmeres'
lodgings. 'But if she is the ordinary country clergyman's spouse, the
squire of course will have given the young man a hint.'

But whether from oblivion, or from some instinct of grim humour towards
Catherine, whom he had always vaguely disliked, the squire said not one
word about his wife to Robert in the course of their talk of Madame de
Netteville.

Catherine took pains with her dress, sorely wishing to do Robert credit.
She put on one of the gowns she had taken to Murewell when she married.
It was black, simply made, and had been a favourite with both of them in
the old surroundings.

So they drove off to Madame de Netteville's. Catherine's heart was
beating faster than usual as she mounted the twisting stairs of the
luxurious little house. All these new social experiences were a trial to
her. But she had the vaguest, most unsuspicious ideas of what she was to
see in this particular house.

A long low room was thrown open to them. Unlike most English rooms, it
was barely though richly furnished. A Persian carpet, of a self-coloured
grayish blue, threw the gilt French chairs and the various figures
sitting upon them into delicate relief. The walls were painted white,
and