ncircled by thoughts which,
linked together, danced round her way so that whether she retreated or
advanced, swayed to the right or to the left, they held her fast.

CHAPTER XIX

Lord Garrow, under his daughter's command, had issued invitations for a
dinner-party that same evening to a few friends, who, it was hoped,
would support the Meeting which Reckage was endeavouring to organise as
a protest against Dr. Temple's nomination. The guests included Reckage
himself, Orange, Charles Aumerle, the Dowager Countess of Larch, Hartley
Penborough, Lady Augusta Hammit, and the Bishop of Calbury's
chaplain,--the Rev. Edwin Pole-Knox.

Sara, arrayed in white satin and opals, sat at the piano playing the
_Faust_ of Berlioz, and wondering whether she had really arranged her
table to perfection, when the footman brought the following note--dashed
off in pencil--from Lord Reckage:--

ALMOUTH HOUSE.

An extraordinary thing has happened. Agnes has run away with David
Rennes. She seems quite broken and her letter is too touching, too
sacred to show. As for him, it is difficult to say what he could
give, or what I would accept, as an excuse. She, however, has my
full forgiveness, and perhaps good may come of so much sorrow and
duplicity. I must see you after the others have gone to-night. My
plan is to leave early--probably with Orange and Aumerle, but I
will return later. I need your counsel. B.

Sara, who was always in league with audacity, clapped her hands at the
tidings of Miss Carillon's bold move. She was not surprised, for, as we
have seen, she had read the girl's character truly, and warned Orange
that some event of the kind would happen. But the pleasure she took in
this confirmation of her own prophetic gifts was alloyed by the fear
that Reckage, now at liberty, would prove a masterful, jealous, and
embarrassing lover. Nor were her forebodings on this score lessened when
he arrived, evidently in a strange mood, a quarter of an hour before the
appointed time. His eyes travelled over her face with a consuming
scrutiny to which she was unaccustomed and for which she found herself
unprepared. For a moment she experienced the disadvantages of a guilty
conscience, and although she had, so far, merely considered various
plans for using his devotion without peril to her own independence, she
felt that the moment for deliberation was past, that the du