s
the right one, as it happened, though she had managed to cover a great
deal of ground in that jump. She at once wrote off a long and violent
letter to her niece, taxing her with cruelty, fickleness, and
ingratitude, laying Vincent's misdeeds on her shoulders, and ending
thus: "They tell me you are engaged. I pray God you may not have to go
through what you have made my darling boy suffer."

Now, either the poor hysterical lady was an unconscious instrument in
the hands of Destiny, or her prayer may have been meant as a modified
and lady-like curse; at any rate, if it had not entered into her head to
write that letter, it would have saved the writing of one chapter in her
niece's history. But, in the first place, the communication had the
effect of making Audrey cry a great deal, for her; in the second, it
came by an afternoon post, so that Langley Wyndham, calling at his usual
hour, found her crying.

He was a little taken aback by the sight, as indeed any man would have
been, for most women of his acquaintance arranged things so as not to do
their crying in calling hours.

However, he judged it the truest kindness to sit down and talk as if
nothing had happened. But it requires considerable self-possession and
command of language to sit still and talk about the weather with a
woman's tears falling before you like rain; and even Langley Wyndham,
that studious cultivator of phrases, found it hard. Audrey herself
relieved him from his embarrassment by frankly drying her eyes and
saying--

"I beg your pardon. I didn't mean that to happen; but----"

He glanced at the letter open in her lap.

"Not bad news, I hope?"

"N-no," she answered, with a sob verging on the hysterical.

Wyndham looked frightened at that, and she checked herself in time.

"No, it's nothing. At least I can't speak about it. And yet--if I did, I
believe I should feel better. I am so miserable."

"I am truly sorry. I wish I could be of some use. If you thought you
could speak about it to me, you know you can trust me."

"I know I can. Oh, if I could only tell you! But I can't."

"Why not? Would it be so very hard? I _might_ be able to help you."

"You might. I do want somebody's advice--so much."

"You are always welcome to mine. You needn't take it, you know."

She smiled through her tears, for she had acquired a faint sense of
humour under Ted's influence, and had not yet lost it.

"Well, it's about Vinc--my cousin Mr. Hardy. You re