f a justified prophet
seemed to mingle with the dismay of a wife and the anger of a sufferer;
Lady Richard had expected nothing less all along!

"I'm afraid I rather--well, that Lady May didn't like it."

"Poor dear May must know what to expect by now."

"Perhaps she never knows what to expect. That'd be worse." The remark was
a little too subtle for Lady Richard's half-attentive ear. She contented
herself with sighing expressively. Morewood looked across the lawn again;
the slow-walking figure had disappeared, presumably into the shrubberies.
Two or three moments later he saw Marchmont strolling off in that
direction, cigar in mouth and hands in pockets. He rose, shook himself,
and cried to the brothers, "Oh, in heaven's name, come and play pool."
Jimmy refused and paired off with his _fiancee_, but Dick agreed to
billiards, saying as they went in, "It'll keep you from making a fool of
yourself any more." Morewood, finding his own impression of his conduct
thus confirmed, grunted remorsefully as he took down his cue.

Marchmont crossed the lawn and the path, and was hidden by the
shrubberies. Lady Richard watched till she could see him no more, and
then went indoors with another sigh; this last was a disclaimer of
responsibility; if Marchmont liked to comfort May, it was no business of
hers.

He loitered on, not admitting that he was looking for May, but very sore
to think that she had wandered away to a sad solitude rather than be with
her friends; since she did that, she was wounded indeed. There was a seat
round an old tree-trunk at the farther side of the shrubbery; the memory
of it really directed his apparently aimless steps, and as he approached
it he threw away his half-smoked cigar; he thought he would find her
there; what he would say to her he did not know.

He was right. There, she sat, very still, and looking pale under the
moon. Coming up to her he said, "I know you want to be alone, don't you?"
She smiled and answered, "No, stay. I'm glad to have you," and he sat
down by her. She was silent, her eyes gazing steadily in front of her;
the air was sweet and very still. Now he needed no telling that his guess
at the situation had been right, that she had shielded her husband at her
own cost; her face told him what the cost seemed to her. A great
indignation against the man filled him, gaining unacknowledged
reinforcement from the love he himself had for the woman. He had wrought
for himself a masterpie