.
"Perhaps not. But, to tell the truth, I don't like young women whom I
can't understand. Young women shouldn't be mysterious. I like people
of whom I can give a pretty good guess what they'll do. I'm sure I
never could have guessed that she would have married that man."

"If you love me, mother, do not let that be mentioned between us
again. When I said that you did not understand her, I did not mean
that she was mysterious. I think that before he died, and since his
death, she learned of what sort that man was. I will not say that she
hates his memory, but she hates herself for what she has done."

"So she ought," said Mrs. Fletcher.

"She has not yet brought herself to think that her life should be
anything but one long period of mourning, not for him, but for her
own mistake. You may be quite sure that I am in earnest. It is not
because I doubt of myself that I put it off. But I fear that if once
she asserts to me her resolution to remain as she is, she will feel
herself bound to keep her word."

"I suppose she is very much the same as other women, after all, my
dear," said Mrs. Fletcher, who was almost jealous of the peculiar
superiority of sentiment which her son seemed to attribute to this
woman.

"Circumstances, mother, make people different," he replied.

"So you are going without having anything fixed," his elder brother
said to him the day before he started.

"Yes, old fellow. It seems to be rather slack;--doesn't it?"

"I dare say you know best what you're about. But if you have set your
mind on it--"

"You may take your oath on that."

"Then I don't see why one word shouldn't put it all right. There
never is any place so good for that kind of thing as a country
house."

"I don't think that with her it will make much difference where the
house is, or what the circumstances."

"She knows what you mean as well as I do."

"I dare say she does, John. She must have a very bad idea of me if
she doesn't. But she may know what I mean and not mean the same thing
herself."

"How are you to know if you don't ask her?"

"You may be sure that I shall ask her as soon as I can hope that my
doing so may give her more pleasure than pain. Remember, I have had
all this out with her father. I have determined that I will wait till
twelve months have passed since that wretched man perished."

On that afternoon before dinner he was alone with her in the library
some minutes before they went up to dress for di