oak-beamed farm-house parlour
was full of the deep golden sunlight of the late afternoon, the air was
heavy with the scent of roses and sweet-peas and mignonette, the
adorable fragrance of English country-house rooms. Captain Osborn
inhaled it at each breath as he stood and looked out of the
diamond-paned window, watching the landau out of sight. He felt the
scent and the golden glow of the sunset light as intensely as he felt
the dead silence which reigned between himself and Hester almost with
the effect of a physical presence. Hester was lying upon the sofa again,
and he knew she was staring at his back with that sardonic widening of
her long eyes, a thing he hated, and which always foreboded things not
pleasant to face.

He did not turn to face them until the footman's cockade had disappeared
finally behind the tall hedge, and the tramp of the horses' feet was
deadening itself in the lane. When he ceased watching and listening, he
wheeled round suddenly.

"What does it all mean?" he demanded. "Hang her foolish airs and
graces._ Why_ won't she ride, for she evidently does not intend to."

Hester laughed, a hard, short, savage little un-mirthful sound it was.

"No, she doesn't intend to," she answered, "for many a long day, at
least, for many a month. She has Sir Samuel Brent's orders to take the
greatest care of herself."

"Brent's? Brent's?"

Hester struck her lean little hands together and laughed this time with
a hint at hysteric shrillness.

"I told you so, I told you so!" she cried. "I knew it would be so, I
knew it! By the time she reaches her thirty-sixth birthday there will be
a new Marquis of Walderhurst, and he won't be either you or yours." And
as she finished, she rolled over on the sofa, and bit the cushions with
her teeth as she lay face downwards on them. "He won't be you, or belong
to you," she reiterated, and then she struck the cushions with her
clenched fist.

He rushed over to her, and seizing her by the shoulders shook her to and
fro.

"You don't know what you are talking about," he said; "you don't know
what you are saying."

"I do! I do! I do!" she screamed under her breath, and beat the cushions
at every word. "It's true, it's true. She's drivelling about it,
drivelling!"

Alec Osborn threw back his head, drawing in a hard breath which was
almost a snort of fury.

"By God!" he cried, "if she went out on Faustine now, she would not come
back!"

His rage had made him so far be