e must have a big house, like their
own, and a troop of thieving servants, or we were eternally disgraced.
_How_ I got the money didn't matter, so long as I got it. And she
hadn't courage--she thought it wrong to defy them. As if the wrong
wasn't in giving way to such a base superstition! I believe she has
seen that since her father's death. And now----'

He broke down, shaking and choking in an agony of sobs. Harvey could
only lay a kind hand upon him; there was no verbal comfort to offer.
Presently Cecil talked on again, and so they sat together as twilight
passed into darkness. Rolfe would gladly have taken the poor fellow
home with him, out of solitude with its miseries and dangers, but Cecil
refused. Eventually they walked westward for a few miles; then Morphew,
with a promise to see his friend next day, turned back into the crowd.

CHAPTER 8

Alma was walking on the sea-road at Penzance, glad to be quite alone,
yet at a loss how to spend the time. Rolfe had sailed for Scilly, and
would be absent for two or three days; Mrs. Frothingham, with Hughie
for companion, was driving to Marazion. Why--Alma asked herself--had
she wished to be left alone this morning? Some thought had glimmered
vaguely in her restless mind; she could not recover it.

The little shop window, set out with objects carved in serpentine, held
her for a moment; but remembering how often she had paused here lately,
she felt ashamed, and walked on. Presently there moved towards her a
lady in a Bath-chair; a lady who had once been beautiful, but now,
though scarcely middle-aged, looked gaunt and haggard from some long
illness. The invalid held open a newspaper, and Alma, in passing, saw
that it was _The World_. At once her step quickened, for she had
remembered the desire which touched her an hour ago.

She walked to the railway station, surveyed the papers on the
bookstall, and bought three--papers which would tell her what was going
on in society. With these in hand she found a quiet spot, sheltered
from the August sun, where she could sit and read. She read eagerly,
enviously. And before long her eye fell upon a paragraph in which was a
name she knew. Lady Isobel Barker, in her lovely retreat at Boscombe,
was entertaining a large house-party; in the list appeared--Mrs. Hugh
Carnaby. Unmistakable: Mrs. Hugh Carnaby. Who Lady Isobel might be,
Alma had no idea; nor were any of the other guests known to her, but
the names of all seemed to