already building
her future.

"It is December now. Hugh and I shall be married next December, D.V.,
not before. We will be married quietly in London and go abroad. I shall
have a few tailor-made gowns from Vernon, but I shall wait for my other
things till I am in Paris on my way back. The boys will be at school by
then. Pauly is rather young, but they had better go together, and they
need not come home for the holidays just at first. I don't think Hugh
would care to have the boys always about. I won't keep my title. I hate
everything to do with _him_"--(Lord Newhaven was still _him_)--"and I
know the Queen does not like it. I will be presented as Mrs. Scarlett,
and we will live at his place in Shropshire, and at last we shall be
happy. Hugh will never turn against me as _he_ did."

Lady Newhaven's thoughts travelled back, in spite of herself, to her
marriage with Lord Newhaven, and the humble, boundless admiration which
she had accepted as a matter of course, which had been extinguished so
entirely, so inexplicably, soon after marriage, which had been succeeded
by still more inexplicable paroxysms of bitterness and contempt. Other
men, Lady Newhaven reflected, respected and loved their wives even after
they lost their complexions, and--she had kept hers. Why had he been
different from others? It was impossible to account for men and their
ways. And how he had sneered at her when she talked gravely to him,
especially on religious subjects. Decidedly, Edward had been very
difficult, until he settled down into the sarcastic indifference that
had marked all his intercourse with her after the first year.

"Hugh will never be like that," she said to herself, "and he will never
laugh at me for being religious. He understands me as Edward never did.
And I will be married in a pale shade of violet velvet trimmed with
ermine, as it will be a winter wedding. And my bouquet shall be of
Neapolitan violets, to match my name."

"May I come in?" said Rachel's voice.

"Do," said Lady Newhaven, but without enthusiasm.

She no longer needed Rachel. The crisis during which she had clung to
her was past. What shipwrecked seaman casts a second thought after his
rescue to the log which supported him upon a mountainous sea? Rachel
interrupted pleasant thoughts. Lady Newhaven observed that her friend's
face had grown unbecomingly thin, and that what little color there was
in it was faded. "She is the same age as I am, but she looks much