is her best protection?"

"Assuredly."

The sudden reflection that Perigal had never really loved her produced,
strangely enough, in Mavis a sharp but short-lived revulsion of feeling
in his favour. On the whole, Mavis's, heart inclined to social gaiety.
To begin with, the constant change afforded by a succession of events
which, although all of a piece, were to her unseasoned senses ever
varying, provided some relief from the remorse and suffering that were
always more or less in possession of her heart. Also, having for all
her life been cut off from the gaieties natural to her age and kind,
her present innocent dissipations were a satisfaction of this long
repressed social instinct.

But, at all times, Windebank's conduct was a puzzle. Although he had
the run of the house, although scarcely a day passed without Mavis
seeing a good deal of him, he never betrayed by word or look the love
which Miss Toombs declared burned within him for Mavis. He had left the
service in order to devote more time to his Wiltshire property, but his
duties seemed to consist chiefly in making himself useful to Mavis or
her husband. Womanlike, Mavis would sometimes try to discover her power
over him, but although no trouble was too great for him to take in
order to oblige her, Mavis's most provoking moods neither weakened his
allegiance nor made him other than his calm, collected self.

"No! Miss Toombs is mistaken," thought Mavis. "He doesn't love me; he
but understands and pities me."

A week before Christmas, Mavis and her husband returned to Melkbridge.
Christmas Day that year fell on a Sunday. Upon the preceding Saturday,
she bade her many Melkbridge acquaintances to the feast. When this was
over, she wished her guests good night and a happy Christmas. After
seeing her husband safely abed and asleep, she set about making
preparations for a project that she had long had in her mind. Going to
her room, she put on the plainest and most inconspicuous hat she could
find; she also donned a long cloak and concealed face and hair in a
thick veil. Unlocking a box, she got out a cross made of holly, which
she concealed under her cloak. Then, after listening to see if the
house were quiet, she went downstairs in her stockings, and carrying
the thick boots she purposed wearing. Arrived at the front door, the
bolts and bars of which she had secretly oiled, she opened this after
putting on her boots, and let herself out into the night. Vigorous