th riding
towards us. We halted and waited for them. Mr. Devlin was introduced
to Mrs. Falchion by his daughter, who was sweetly solicitous concerning
Mrs. Falchion and Justine Caron, and seemed surprised at finding them
abroad after the accident of the day before. Ruth said that her father
and herself had just come from the summer hotel, where they had gone
to call upon Mrs. Falchion. Mrs. Falchion heartily acknowledged the
courtesy. She seemed to be playing no part, but was apparently grateful
all round; yet I believe that even already Ruth had caught at something
in her presence threatening Roscoe's peace; whilst she, from the
beginning, had, with her more trained instincts, seen the relations
between the clergyman and his young parishioner.--But what had that to
do with her?

Between Roscoe and Ruth there was the slightest constraint, and
I thought that it gave a troubled look to the face of the girl.
Involuntarily, the eyes of both were attracted to Mrs. Falchion. I
believe in that moment there was a kind of revelation among the three.
While I talked to Mr. Devlin I watched them, standing a little apart,
Justine Caron with us. It must have been a painful situation for them;
to the young girl because a shadow was trailing across the light of her
first love; to Roscoe because the shadow came out of his past; to Mrs.
Falchion because she was the shadow. I felt that trouble was at hand.
In this trouble I knew that I was to play a part; for, if Roscoe had his
secret and Mrs. Falchion had the key to it, I also held a secret which,
in case of desperate need, I should use. I did not wish to use it, for
though it was mine it was also another's. I did not like the look in
Mrs. Falchion's eyes as she glanced at Ruth: I was certain that she
resented Roscoe's regard for Ruth and Ruth's regard for Roscoe; but,
up to that moment, I had not thought it possible that she cared for him
deeply. Once she had influenced me, but she had never cared for me.

I could see a change in her. Out of it came that glance at Ruth, which
seemed to me the talon-like hatred that shot from the eyes of Goneril
and Regan: and I was sure that if she loved Roscoe there would be mad
trouble for him and for the girl. Heretofore she had been passionless,
but there was a dormant power in her which had only to be wickedly
aroused to wreck her own and others' happiness. Hers was one of those
volcanic natures, defying calculation and ordinary conceptions of lif