ounced the date of Paula's marriage.
Annabel received the letter to read. As she was sitting with her father
a little later, he said, with a return of his humorous mood:

'I wonder on what footing Egremont will be in the new household?'

'I suppose,' Annabel replied, 'his acquaintance with Mr. Dalmaine will
continue to be of the slightest.'

He paused a little, then, quietly:

'I am glad of this marriage.'

Annabel said nothing.

'It proves,' he continued, 'that we did well in not thinking too
gravely of a certain incident.'

Annabel led the conversation away. She had singular thoughts on this
subject. Paula's letter, first announcing the engagement, made mention
of Egremont in a curious way; and it was at least a strange hap that
Paula should be about to marry the man against whom Egremont had
expressed such an antipathy.

Her father said no more, but Annabel had a new care for her dark mood
to feed upon. She felt that the words 'I am glad of this marriage'
concerned herself. They meant that her father was glad of the removal
of what was perchance one barrier between Egremont and herself. And in
these long weeks in which she was anguished by the spectacle of
suffering, it had become her first desire to be of comfort to the
sufferer. Her ideal of a placid life was shattered; the things which
availed her formerly now seemed weak to rely upon. In so dark a world,
what guidance was there save by the hand of love?

With Egremont she was in full intellectual sympathy, and the thought of
becoming his wife had no painful associations; but could she bring
herself to abandon that ideal of love which had developed with her own
development? Must she relinquish the hope of a great passion, and take
the hand of a man whom she merely liked and respected? It was a
question she must decide, for Walter, when they again met, might again
seek to win her. The idealism which she derived from her father would
not allow her yet to regard life as a compromise, which women are so
skilled in doing practically, though the better part in them to the end
revolts. Yet who was she, that life should bestow its highest blessing
upon her?

When at the Tyrrells' house in London, she feared lest Egremont should
come. Mrs. Tyrrell spoke much of him the first evening, lamenting that
he had so withdrawn himself from his friends. But he did not come.

At Eastbourne, Mr. Newthorpe's health began to improve. Even in a week
the change was very mark