moved his heart. If she were indeed so much to him, why did he
not come down and beg her with passionate words to join her life to his?

Mavis made no allowance for the man's natural delicacy for her
feelings, which he considered must have been cruelly harrowed by all
she had lately suffered. Just now, there was no room in her world for
the more delicate susceptibilities of emotion. She wholly misjudged
him, and the more she thought of it, the more she believed that his
letter was dictated by pity rather than love. This pity irked her pride
and made her disinclined to accept his offer.

Then Mavis thought of Major Perigal's letter. It flattered her to think
how her personality appealed to those of her own social kind. She began
to realise what a desirable wife she would have made if it had not been
for her meeting and subsequent attachment to Charlie Perigal. Any man,
Windebank, but for this experience, would have been proud to have made
her his wife. She believed that her whole-hearted devotion to a
worthless man had for ever cut her off from love, wifehood,
motherhood--things for which her being starved. Then she tried to
fathom the why and wherefore of it all. She had always tried to do
right: in situations where events were foreign to her control, she had
trusted to her Heavenly Father for protection. "Why was it," she asked
herself, "that her lot had not been definitely thrown in with Windebank
before she had met with Charles Perigal? Why?" Such was her resentment
at the ordering of events, that she set her teeth and banged her
clenched fist upon the arm of her chair.

At that moment the crippled man wheeled himself past the house on his
self-propelled tricycle. He looked intently at the window of the room
that Mavis occupied. At the same moment Mrs Budd came into the room to
ask what Mavis would like for luncheon.

"Who is that passing?" asked Mavis.

The old woman ran lightly to the window.

"The gentleman on that machine?"

"Yes. I've often seen him about."

"It's Mr Harold Devitt, miss."

"Harold Devitt! Where does he come from?" asked Mavis of Mrs Budd, who
had a genius for gleaning the gossip of the place.

"Melkbridge. He's the eldest son of Mr Montague Devitt, a very rich
gentleman. Mr Harold lives at Mrs Buck's with a male nurse to look
after him, poor fellow."

Mrs Budd went on talking, but Mavis did not hear what she was saying.
Mention of the name of Devitt was the spark that set alight a