which he invariably read until he dressed for
dinner, she stole away to the further room, where she could play the
piano, write letters, muse over novels, or indulge in reverie without
fear of interruption. But as she entered it that afternoon its air of
peace seemed the bleakness of desolation. A terrible and afflicting
grief swept, like an icy breeze, through her heart, and, whether from
actual physical pain or the excitement of the last few hours, tears
started to her eyes, her cheeks flushed, and she fell to passionate
weeping. The smiling Nymphs painted on the ceiling above her head and
the rose leaves they were for ever scattering to the dancing Hours (a
charming group, and considered very cheerful), could not relieve her
woe. She cried long and bitterly, and was on the verge of hysterics when
the door opened and her most intimate woman friend, the Viscountess Fitz
Rewes, was announced. This bewitching creature--who was a widow, with
two long flaxen curls, a sweet figure, and the smile of an
angel--embraced her dear, dear Sara with genuine affection, and
pretended not to see her swollen eyelids. Sara possessed for Pensee Fitz
Rewes the fascination of a desperate nature for a meek one. The
audacity, brilliancy, and recklessness of the younger woman at once
stimulated and established the other's gentle piety.

They talked for fifteen minutes about the autumn visits they had paid,
the visits they would have to pay, and the visits which nothing in the
world would induce them to pay.

"I have been at home, at Catesby, most of the time," said Pensee; "a
very quiet, happyish time, on the whole. I had a few people down, but I
saw a great deal of a particularly nice person. She is a foreigner--an
archduchess really. Her father made a morganatic marriage. I am so glad
they don't have morganatic marriages in England. I don't like to be
uncharitable, but they seem, in a way, so improper. Madame de Parflete
is all one could wish. Her husband was a dreadful man."

"What did he do?" said Sara, who was a little absent.

"Oh, all kinds of things. He committed suicide in the end. And now--she
is going to marry a friend of mine."

"Who is he?"

"I never told you about him before," said Pensee, "but I am so miserable
to-day that you may as well know. He was a sort of brother, yet much
more. One didn't meet him often in our set, because he didn't and
doesn't care about it. Life, however, threw us together."

She covered her w