"Really! how disappointing! I am very sorry!"

There is not a particle of sorrow in face or tone: only the counterfeit
grief of an utterly indifferent acquaintance. My heart feels a little
lightened.

"And have _you_ no better luck, either?" I say, more cheerfully. "Is
there no talk of your--of Mr. Huntley coming back?"

Her eyelids droop: her breast heaves in a placid sigh.

"Not the slightest, I am afraid."

What to say next? I have had enough of asking after her child. I will
not fall into _that_ error again. Ask who all the men in the rococo
frames are?--which of them, or whether any, is _Mr._ Huntley? On
consideration, I decide not to do this either; and, after one or two
more stunted attempts at talk, I take my leave. I ask Algy to accompany
me just down the drive, and with a most grudging and sulky air of
unwillingness he complies. Alas! he always used to like to be with us
girls. The ponies are fresh, and we have almost reached the gate before
I speak, with a difficult hesitation.

"Algy," say I, "did you happen to notice that--that _bracelet_?"

He does not answer. He is looking the other way, and turns only the back
of his head toward me.

"It was from Hunt and Roskell," I say.

"Oh!"

"It must have--must have--_come to_ a good deal," I go on, timidly.

He has turned his face to me now. I cannot complain, but indeed, as it
now is, I prefer the back of his head, so white and headstrong does he
look.

"I wish to God," he says, in a voice of low anger, "that you would be so
obliging as to mind your own business, and allow me to mind mine!"

"But it _is_ mine!" I cry, passionately; "what right has she to be
sitting all day with young men on stools at her feet?--she, a married
woman, with her husband--"

"This comes extremely well from _you_," he says, in a voice of
concentrated anger, with a bitterly-sneering tone; "_how is Musgrave_?"

Before I can answer, he has jumped out, and is half-way back to the
house. But indeed I am dumb. Is it possible that _he_ makes such a
mistake?--that he does not see the difference?

For the next half-mile, I see neither ponies, nor misty hedges, nor
wintry high-road, for tears. I _used_ to get on so well with the boys!

CHAPTER XXVII.

When I return home, I find that Barbara is still no better. She is still
lying in her darkened room, and has asked not to be disturbed. And even
_my_ wrongs are not such as to justify my forcing myself upon the
painfu