onship to
herself. Julie accepted the situation with perfect composure, and the
three kept up some sort of a conversation till they reached the paved
street of Charnex and the old inn at its lower end.

Julie guided her companions through its dark passages, till they reached
an outer terrace where there were a few scattered seats, and among them
a deck-chair with cushions.

"Please," said Julie, as she kindly drew the girl towards it. Aileen
smiled and yielded. Julie placed her among the cushions, then brought
out a shawl, and covered her warmly from the sharp, damp air. Aileen
thanked her, and lightly touched her hand. A secret sympathy seemed to
have suddenly sprung up between them.

Lady Blanche sat stiffly beside her daughter, watching her face. The
warm touch of friendliness in Aileen's manner towards Mrs. Delafield
seemed only to increase the distance and embarrassment of her own. Julie
appeared to be quite unconscious. She ordered tea, and made no further
allusion of any kind to the kindred they had in common. She and Lady
Blanche talked as strangers.

Julie said to herself that she understood. She remembered the evening at
Crowborough House, the spinster lady who had been the Moffatts' friend,
her own talk with Evelyn. In that way, or in some other, the current
gossip about herself and Warkworth, gossip they had been too mad and
miserable to take much account of, had reached Lady Blanche. Lady
Blanche probably abhorred her; though, because of her marriage, there
was to be an outer civility. Meanwhile no sign whatever of any angry or
resentful knowledge betrayed itself in the girl's manner. Clearly the
mother had shielded her.

Julie felt the flutter of an exquisite relief. She stole many a look at
Aileen, comparing the reality with that old, ugly notion her jealousy
had found so welcome--of the silly or insolent little creature,
possessing all that her betters desired, by the mere brute force of
money or birth. And all the time the reality was _this_--so soft,
suppliant, ethereal! Here, indeed, was the child of Warkworth's
picture--the innocent, unknowing child, whom their passion had
sacrificed and betrayed. She could see the face now, as it lay piteous,
in Warkworth's hand. Then she raised her eyes to the original. And as it
looked at her with timidity and nascent love her own heart beat wildly,
now in remorse, now in a reviving jealousy.

Secretly, behind this mask of convention, were they both thinkin