deleine Alcot rested her thin cheek on a still frailer hand and looked
pensively out into the darkness of the cedars. Her tone was neither
patronizing nor unkind; rather, the shade of ironic tenderness which it
expressed suited the subject, and that curious intimacy which had of
late sprung up between herself and Darrell. She had begun, as we have
seen, by treating him <i>de haut en bas</i>. He had repaid her with manner of
the same type; in this respect he was a match for any Archangel. Then
some accident--perhaps the publication by the man of a volume of essays
which expressed to perfection his acid and embittered talent--perhaps a
casual meeting at a northern country-house, where the lady had found the
man of letters her only resource amid a crowd of uncongenial
nonentities--had shown them their natural compatibility. Both were in a
secret revolt against circumstance and their own lives; but whereas the
reasons for the man's attitude--his jealousies, defeats, and
ambitions--were fairly well understood by the woman, he was almost as
much in the dark about her as when their friendship began.

He knew her husband slightly--an eager, gifted fellow, of late years a
strong High Churchman, and well known in a certain group as the friend
of Mrs. Armagh, that muse--fragile, austere, and beautiful--of several
great men, and great Christians, among the older generation. Mrs. Alcot
had her own intimates, generally men; but she tired of them and changed
them often. Mr. Alcot spent part of every year within reach of the
Cornish home of Mrs. Armagh; and during that time his wife made her
round of visits.

Meanwhile her thin lips were sealed as to her own affairs. Certainly she
made the impression of an unhappy woman, and Darrell was convinced of
some tragic complication. But neither he nor any one of whom he had yet
inquired had any idea what it might be.

"By-the-way--where is Lady Kitty?--and are there many people here?"

Darrell turned, as he spoke, to scrutinize the house and its approaches.
Haggart Hall was a large and commonplace mansion, standing in the midst
of spreading "grounds" and dull plantations, beyond which could be
sometimes seen the tall chimneys of neighboring coal-mines. It wore an
air of middle-class Tory comfort which brought a smile to Darrell's
countenance as he surveyed it.

"Kitty is at the Agricultural Show--with a party."

"Playing the great lady? <i>What</i> a house!"

"Yes. Kitty abhors it. But