ould no more think
of _telling_ her anything than one would think of catching a butterfly
and holding it while one made it listen. She would be so _bored_ if she
was confided in."

Which was most true. Never in her life had her ladyship allowed herself
the indiscretion of appearing a person in whom confidences might be
reposed. She had always had confidences enough of her own to take care
of, without sharing those of other people.

"Good heavens!" she had exclaimed once, "I should as soon think of
assuming another woman's wrinkles."

On the first visit Lady Walderhurst made to The Kennel Farm the morning
after her return to Palstrey, when Alec Osborn helped her from her
carriage, he was not elated by the fact that he had never seen her look
so beautifully alive and blooming during his knowledge of her. There was
a fine rose on her cheek, and her eyes were large and happily illumined.

"How well you look!" broke from him with an involuntariness he was
alarmed to realise as almost spiteful. The words were an actual
exclamation which he had not meant to utter, and Emily Walderhurst even
started a trifle and looked at him with a moment's question.

"But you look well, too," she answered. "Palstrey agrees with both of
us. You have such a colour."

"I have been riding," he replied. "I told you I meant to know Faustine
thoroughly before I let you mount her. She is ready for you now. Can you
take your first lesson to-morrow?"

"I--I don't quite know," she hesitated. "I will tell you a little later.
Where is Hester?"

Hester was in the drawing-room. She was lying on a sofa before an open
window and looking rather haggard and miserable. She had, in fact, just
had a curious talk with Alec which had ended in something like a scene.
As Hester's health grew more frail, her temper became more fierce, and
of late there had been times when a certain savagery, concealed with
difficulty in her husband's moods, affected her horribly.

This morning she felt a new character in Emily's manner. She was timid
and shy, and a little awkward. Her child-like openness of speech and
humour seemed obscured. She had less to say than usual, and at the same
time there was a suggestion of restless unease about her. Hester Osborn,
after a few minutes, began to have an odd feeling that the woman's eyes
held a question or a desire in them.

She had brought some superb roses from the Manor gardens, and she moved
about arranging them for Hester in