or Di," she said--"poor, poor Di!"

CHAPTER XXV.

The carriage had waited long before this, but when Daisy left her
Jeannie went out for a breath of evening air. London, to her eyes, was
looking very hot and tired, a purplish heat-haze hung in the sky, and
the grass of the Park was yellow with the scorching of the last week,
and grey with dust.

Yet somehow it all brought a sense of extraordinary peace and
refreshment to Jeannie. She, too, felt mentally hot and tired, but she
knew that whatever scene it might be necessary to go through with Tom
Lindfield, the worst was over. For, all unwittingly indeed, his had been
the fault, and though Jeannie liked him and hated the idea both of his
suffering and his possible bitterness and anger against her, all that
was in the nature of justice; acts have always their consequences, and
those who have committed them must bear what follows. But poor Daisy had
done nothing; it was for the fault of others that her soul had been in
the grip of resentment, jealousy, and anger, which had embittered and
poisoned her days and nights.

But that, all at any rate that was bitter in it, had now passed. She saw
the meaning of her suffering; it was no longer a blind and wicked force.
And though one love had to be left to wither and die in her heart,
Jeannie knew well that the love between Daisy and her, which all this
week had been blighted, was full of fresh-springing shoots again, which
would help to cover over the bare place.

Then, for herself, more precious than all was that sense of that great
love which, she believed, had never suffered the dimness of a moment's
doubt. Victor had seen her acting in a way that was impossible for him
to understand, but he had quite refused, so Jeannie believed, to let his
mind even ask a why or wherefore, still less conjecture any answer. His
own love for her and the absolute certainty of her love for him were
things so huge that nothing else could be compared with them. They stood
like great mountains, based on the earth but reaching into the heavens,
firm and imperishable, and if anything could come between his vision and
them, it could be no more than a mist-wreath which would presently pass,
and could no more shake or invalidate their stability than the grasses
and flowers that waved in the pleasant meadow beneath them.

And had Jeannie but known it she would have found more comfort yet in
the thought of Daisy, for at this moment Daisy, alo