endured it without doing something foolish, she felt that
she would not, indeed.

So Lady Maria went gaily away to make her round of visits and be the
amusing old life and soul of house-party after house-party, suspecting
nothing of a possibility which would actually have sobered her for a
moment.

Emily passed her days at Palstrey in a state of happy exaltation. For a
week or so they were spent in wondering whether or not she should write
a letter to Lord Walderhurst which should convey the information to him
which even Lady Maria would have regarded as important, but the more she
argued the question with herself, the less she wavered from her first
intention. Lady Maria's frank congratulation of herself and Lord
Walderhurst in his wife's entire unexactingness had indeed been the
outcome of a half-formed intention to dissipate amiably even the vaguest
inclination to verge on expecting things from people. While she thought
Emily unlikely to allow herself to deteriorate into an encumbrance, her
ladyship had seen women in her position before, whose marriages had made
perfect fools of them through causing them to lose their heads
completely and require concessions and attentions from their newly
acquired relations which bored everybody. So she had lightly patted and
praised Emily for the course of action she preferred to "keep her up
to."

"She's the kind of woman ideas sink into if they are well put," she had
remarked in times gone by. "She's not sharp enough to see that things
are being suggested to her, but a suggestion acts upon her
delightfully."

Her suggestions acted upon Emily as she walked about the gardens at
Palstrey, pondering in the sunshine and soothed by the flower scents of
the warmed borders. Such a letter written to Walderhurst might change
his cherished plans, concerning which she knew he held certain
ambitions. He had been so far absorbed in them that he had gone to India
at a time of the year which was not usually chosen for the journey. He
had become further interested and absorbed after he had reached the
country, and he was evidently likely to prolong his stay as he had not
thought of prolonging it. He wrote regularly though not frequently, and
Emily had gathered from the tone of his letters that he was more
interested than he had ever been in his life before.

"I would not interfere with his work for anything in the world," she
said. "He cares more for it than he usually cares for things. I c