never love him; and so it
ended immediately. You do her injustice in your thoughts of her; and you
do me injustice, too, if you think of me as a person who would marry
where I did not love."

He walked beside her, bitterly revolving the sorry comfort of this last
speech. "Who was the young man?" he asked. Not that he really cared to
know.

"His name is Herr Franz Lippheim," said Karen, gravely. "He is a young
musician."

"Herr Franz Lippheim," Gregory repeated, with an irritation glad to
wreak itself on this sudden object presented opportunely. "How could you
have been imagined as marrying someone called Lippheim?"

"Why not, pray?"

"Is he a German Jew?" Gregory inquired after a moment.

"He is, indeed, of Joachim's nationality," Karen answered, in a voice
from which the tears were gone.

They walked on, side by side, the estrangement cutting deep between
their new-won nearness. Yet in the estrangement was an intimacy deeper
than that of the merely blissful state. They seemed in the last
miserable half hour to have advanced by years their knowledge of each
other. Mrs. Talcott and tea were waiting for them in the morning-room.
The old woman fixed her eyes upon each face in turn and then gave her
attention to her tea-pot.

"I am sorry, Mrs. Talcott, that we are so late," Karen said. Her
composure was kept only by an effort that gave to her tones a stately
conventionality.

"Don't mention it," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm only just in myself."

"Has it not been a beautiful afternoon?" Karen continued. "What have you
been doing in the garden, Mrs. Talcott?"

"I sowed a big bed of mignonette down by the arbour, and Mitchell and I
set out a good lot of plants."

Mrs. Talcott made her replies to the questions that Karen continued to
ask, in an even voice in which Gregory, who kept his dismal eyes upon
her, detected a melancholy patience. Mrs. Talcott must perceive his
state to be already one of "hanging on." Of her sympathy he was, at all
events, assured. She showed it by rising as soon as he and Karen had
drunk their tea. "I've got some more things to do," she said. "Good-bye,
Mr. Jardine. Are you coming over to-morrow?"

"No," said Gregory taking Mrs. Talcott's hand. "My holiday is over. I
shall be going back to town to-morrow."

Mrs. Talcott looked into his eyes. "Well, that's too bad," she observed.

"Isn't it? I'd far rather stay here, I can assure you," said Gregory.

"We'll miss you, I guess," said Mrs