ales, he saw with
pleasure that Alma no longer revolted against the common lot of woman.
Perhaps, indeed, the announcement she made to him was the cause of more
anxiety in his mind than in hers.

They took their servants with them, and left the house to a caretaker.
Pauline Smith, though somewhat against Harvey's judgment, had been
called upon to resign; Alma wished to have Hughie to herself, save
during his school hours; he slept in her room, and she tended him most
conscientiously. Harvey had asked whether she would like to invite any
one, but she preferred to be alone.

This month by the northern sea improved her health, but she had little
enjoyment. After a few days, she wearied of the shore and the moorland,
and wished herself back at Gunnersbury. Nature had never made much
appeal to her; when she spoke of its beauties with admiration, she
echoed the approved phrases, little more; all her instincts drew
towards the life of a great town. Sitting upon the sand, between cliff
and breakers, she lost herself in a dream of thronged streets and
brilliant rooms; the voice of the waves became the roar of traffic, a
far sweeter music. With every year this tendency had grown stronger;
she could only marvel, now, at the illusion which enabled her to live
so long, all but contentedly, in that wilderness where Hughie was born.
Rather than return to it, she would die--rather, a thousand times.
Happily, there was no such danger. Harvey would never ask her to leave
London. All he desired was that she should hold apart from certain
currents of town life; and this she was resolved to do, knowing how
nearly they had swept her to destruction.

'Wouldn't you like to take up your sketching again?' said Harvey one
day, when he saw that she felt dull.

'Sketching? Oh, I had forgotten all about it. It seems ages ago. I
should have to begin and learn all over again. No, no; it isn't worth
while. I shall have no time.'

She did not speak discontentedly, but Rolfe saw already the
justification of his misgivings. She had begun to feel the constant
presence of the child a restraint and a burden.

Happily, on their return home, Hughie would go to school for a couple
of hours each morning. Alma could have wished it any other school than
Mary Abbott's, but the thought was no longer so insupportable as when
she suffered under her delusion concerning the two children. Now that
she had frequently seen Minnie Wager, she wondered at the
self-dec