d. "I distrust
him. I disbelieve in him. And I dislike exceedingly the friendship
between him and Lois."

Rochester shrugged his shoulders.

"Does it amount to a friendship?" he asked.

"What else?" his wife answered. "It was obvious that she was
interested in him when he was staying here, and twice since I have met
them walking together. I hate mysterious people. They tell me that he
has made Blackbird's Nest look like a museum inside, and there is the
most awful old woman, with white hair and black eyes, who never leaves
his side, they say, when he is at home."

"She is," Rochester remarked, "I presume, of an age to disarm
scandal?"

"She looks as old as Methuselah," his wife answered, "but what does
the man want with such a creature at all?"

"She may be an elderly relative," Rochester suggested.

"Relative? Why, she calls herself the Comtesse somebody!" Lady Mary
declared. "I do wish you would tell me, Henry, exactly what you know
and what you do not know about this young man."

"What I do know is simple enough," he answered. "What I do not know
would, I begin to believe, fill a volume."

"Then you had better go and see him, and readjust matters," she
declared, a little sharply. "I want Lois to marry well, and she
mustn't have her head turned by this young man."

Rochester strolled through the open French-window into the
flower-garden. He pulled a low basket chair out into the sun, close to
a bed of pink and white hyacinths. A man-servant, seeing him, brought
out the morning papers, which had just arrived, but Rochester waved
them away.

"Fancy reading the newspapers on a morning like this!" he murmured,
half to himself. "The person who would welcome the intrusion of a
world of vulgar facts into an aesthetically perfect half-hour,
deserves--well, deserves to be the sort of person he must be. Take the
papers away, Groves," he added, as the man stood by, a little
embarrassed. "Take them to Lord Penarvon or Mr. Hinckley."

The man bowed and withdrew. Rochester half closed his eyes, but opened
them again almost immediately. A white clad figure was passing down
the path on the other side of the lawn. He roused himself to a sitting
posture.

"Lois!" he called out. "Lois!"

She waved her hand, but did not stop. He rose to his feet and called
again. She paused with a reluctance which was indifferently concealed.

"I am going down to the village," she said.

He crossed the lawn towards her.

"I will b