ur brother's
mistress--Sydney Westerfield."

Mrs. Linley laid the parasol back on the table, and approached them.

She never once looked at her mother; her face, white and rigid, was
turned toward Randal. To him, and to him only, she spoke.

"What does my mother's horrible language mean?" she asked.

Mrs. Presty triumphed inwardly; chance had decided in her favor, after
all! "Don't you see," she said to her daughter, "that I am here to
answer for myself?"

Mrs. Linley still looked at Randal, and still spoke to him. "It is
impossible for me to insist on an explanation from my mother," she
proceeded. "No matter what I may feel, I must remember that she _is_ my
mother. I ask you again--you who have been listening to her--what does
she mean?"

Mrs. Presty's sense of her own importance refused to submit to being
passed over in this way.

"However insolently you may behave, Catherine, you will not succeed in
provoking me. Your mother is bound to open your eyes to the truth.
You have a rival in your husband's affections; and that rival is your
governess. Take your own course now; I have no more to say." With her
head high in the air--looking the picture of conscious virtue--the old
lady walked out.

At the same moment Randal seized his first opportunity of speaking.

He addressed himself gently and respectfully to his sister-in-law. She
refused to hear him. The indignation which Mrs. Presty had roused in her
made no allowances, and was blind to all sense of right.

"Don't trouble yourself to account for your silence," she said,
most unjustly. "You were listening to my mother without a word of
remonstrance when I came into the room. You are concerned in this vile
slander, too."

Randal considerately refrained from provoking her by attempting to
defend himself, while she was incapable of understanding him. "You will
be sorry when you find that you have misjudged me," he said, and sighed,
and left her.

She dropped into a chair. If there was any one distinct thought in her
at that moment, it was the thought of her husband. She was eager to see
him; she longed to say to him: "My love, I don't believe a word of it!"
He was not in the garden when she had returned for the parasol; and
Sydney was not in the garden. Wondering what had become of her father
and her governess, Kitty had asked the nursemaid to look for them. What
had happened since? Where had they been found? After some hesitation,
Mrs. Linley sent for the