pered, sliding into his hand the little packet of Don
Juan's hair, "maybe I ought to have given you this aforetime. Allgates
now take it; it is nought to me any more--sith he is hot."

Sir Thomas transferred the little parcel to his pocket.

"'Give thee good night, my jewel! We shall all be fain to have thee
home again to-morrow."

Blanche returned the greeting, but glided away again, and was seen very
little that night. But Mrs Tremayne guessed the state of the girl's
mind more truly than Sir Thomas had done.

The next day they went home.

"Bless thee, my precious Blanche!" was Lady Enville's greeting. "And
thee too, Clare. Good lack, how faded is yon camlet! 'Tis well ye were
but at the parsonage, for it should have shamed thee any other whither."

"Well, child!" said Aunt Rachel. "I trust thou hast come home to work
like a decent lass, and not sit moaning with thine hands afore thee like
a cushat dove. What man ever trod middle earth that was worth a moan?"

"I will essay to give you content, Aunt Rachel," said Blanche quietly.

"Clare, my good lass, I have lacked thee sorely. I scarce wis what to
do without thee."

Clare looked pleased. "Well, Aunt Rachel, I am come to work, and that
with a will," she answered cheerily.

"I am thankful to hear it. Now, if Heaven's will it be, all things
shall go on as usual once again."

But nothing was to go on as usual any more.

Not for Margaret, for Harry Travis had returned from the Netherlands,
and her marriage was to be that day six weeks. Not for Lucrece, who was
elated with what she considered her triumph over Blanche, and was on the
look-out for fresh laurels. Not for Blanche, as the reader knows: nor
for Clare, as he soon will know: nor even for Rachel herself--

"Though only the sorrow of others
Threw its shadow over her."

There was but one person to whom matters went on at all as usual, and
that was Lady Enville. As usual, to her, meant a handsome dress, a
cushioned chair, a good dinner, and an occasional junketing: and since
recent events had not interfered with any of these, Lady Enville went on
much as usual. Yet even she never ceased to regret Blanche's lost
coronet, which no revelation of Don Juan's duplicity would ever persuade
her had not been lying at her daughter's feet, ready to be taken up and
worn. She was one of those persons who will not believe anything which
they do not wish to be true; and on them vouchers and verifi