t was bringing in the hot bacon and eggs--it all
went on like a dream around her; presently, like a voice out of a fog,
somebody spoke to her:

"Vera, are you not feeling well? You look as if you were going to faint."

And then she crunched the letter in her hand and recalled herself to
life.

"I am quite well, thanks," and busied herself with attending to the wants
of the children.

The vicar glanced up over his spectacles. "No bad news, I hope, my dear."

Oh! why could they not let her alone? But somehow she sat through the
breakfast, and answered all their questions, and bore herself bravely;
and when it was over and she was free to go away by herself with her
trouble, then by that time the worst of it was over.

There are some people whom sorrow softens and touches, but Vera was not
one of them. Her whole soul revolted and rebelled against her fate. She
said to herself that for once she had let her heart guide her; she had
cast aside the crust of worldliness and self-indulgence in which she had
been brought up. She had listened to the softer whisperings of the better
nature within her--she had been true to herself--and lo! what had come of
it?

But now she had learnt her lesson; there were to be no more dreams of
pure and unsullied happiness for her,--no more cravings after what was
good and true and lovely; henceforth she would go back to the teachings
of her youth, to the experience which had told her that a handsome woman
can always command her life as she pleases, and that wealth, which is a
tangible reality, is better worth striving after than the vain shadow
called love, which all talk about and so few make any practical
sacrifices for. Well, she, Vera Nevill, had tried it, and had made her
sacrifices; and what remained to her? Only the fixed determination to
crush it down again within her as if it had never been, and to carve out
her fortunes afresh. Only that she started again at a disadvantage--for
now she knew to her cost that she possessed the fatal power of
loving--the knowledge of good and evil, of which she had eaten
the poisoned fruit.

There were no tears in Vera's eyes as she wandered slowly up and down the
garden paths between the straight yellow lines of the crocus heads.

Her lover had forsaken her. Well, let him go. She told herself that, had
he loved her truly, no power on earth would have been great enough to
keep him from her. She said to herself scornfully--she, Vera Nevill, who
w