hood, I believe. I can't exactly make out what he's at. Seems a
queer sort of place for him to come missioning, this!"

"So I told him," she said. "By the bye, do you know where he is
staying?"

"At Onetree farm," the young man answered.

Wilhelmina frowned.

"Will you execute a commission for me to-morrow?" she asked.

"With pleasure!" he answered eagerly.

"You will go to the woman at Onetree farm, I forget her name, and say
that I desire to take her rooms myself from to-morrow, or as soon as
possible. I will pay her for them, but I do not wish that young man to
be taken in by any of my tenants. You will perhaps make that known."

"I will do so," he declared. "I hope he will have the good sense to
leave the neighbourhood."

"I trust so," Wilhelmina replied.

She turned away to speak once more to the man on her other side, and did
not address Stephen Hurd again. He watched her covertly, with tingling
pulses, as she devoted herself to her neighbour--the Lord-Lieutenant of
the county. He considered himself a judge of the sex, but he had had few
opportunities even of admiring such women as the mistress of Thorpe. He
watched the curve of her white neck with its delicate, satin-like skin,
the play of her features, the poise of her somewhat small, oval head. He
admired the slightly wearied air with which she performed her duties and
accepted the compliments of her neighbour. "A woman of mysteries" some
one had once called her, and he realized that it was the mouth and the
dark, tired eyes which puzzled those who attempted to classify her. What
a triumph--to bring her down to the world of ordinary women, to drive
the weariness away, to feel the soft touch, perhaps, of those wonderful
arms! He was a young man of many conquests, and with a sufficiently good
idea of himself. The thought was like wine in his blood. If only it
were possible!

He relapsed into a day-dream, from which he was aroused only by the soft
flutter of gowns and laces as the women rose to go. There was a
momentary disarrangement of seats. Gilbert Deyes, who was on the other
side of the table, rose, and carrying his glass in his hand, came
deliberately round to the vacant seat by the young man's side. In his
evening clothes, the length and gauntness of his face and figure seemed
more noticeable than ever. His skin was dry, almost like parchment, and
his eyes by contrast appeared unnaturally bright. His new neighbour
noticed, too, that the glass wh