on the
verandah! He could see her white figure from head to foot; and, not
realizing that she could not see him, he expected her to utter some cry.
But no sound came from her, no gesture; she turned back into the house.
Miltoun ran forward to the railing. But there, once more, he
stopped--unable to think, unable to feel; as it were abandoned by
himself. And he suddenly found his hand up at his mouth, as though there
were blood there to be staunched that had escaped from his heart.

Still holding that hand before his mouth, and smothering the sound of his
feet in the long grass, he crept away.

CHAPTER XXX

In the great glass house at Ravensham, Lady Casterley stood close to some
Japanese lilies, with a letter in her hand. Her face was very white, for
it was the first day she had been allowed down after an attack of
influenza; nor had the hand in which she held the letter its usual
steadiness. She read:

"MONKLAND COURT.

"Just a line, dear, before the post goes, to tell you that Babs has gone
off happily. The child looked beautiful. She sent you her love, and
some absurd message--that you would be glad to hear, she was perfectly
safe, with both feet firmly on the ground."

A grim little smile played on Lady Casterley's pale lips:--Yes, indeed,
and time too! The child had been very near the edge of the cliffs! Very
near committing a piece of romantic folly! That was well over! And
raising the letter again, she read on:

"We were all down for it, of course, and come back tomorrow. Geoffrey is
quite cut up. Things can't be what they were without our Babs. I've
watched Eustace very carefully, and I really believe he's safely over
that affair at last. He is doing extraordinarily well in the House just
now. Geoffrey says his speech on the Poor Law was head and shoulders the
best made."

Lady Casterley let fall the hand which held the letter. Safe? Yes, he
was safe! He had done the right--the natural thing! And in time he
would be happy! He would rise now to that pinnacle of desired authority
which she had dreamed of for him, ever since he was a tiny thing, ever
since his little thin brown hand had clasped hers in their wanderings
amongst the flowers, and the furniture of tall rooms. But, as she
stood--crumpling the letter, grey-white as some small resolute ghost,
among her tall lilies that filled with their scent the great glass
house-shadows flitted