this girl. Surely there must
have been plenty of ladies he could have had."

"Ah, but they all knew he'd been jilted," said Lady Martin wisely.
"Besides they say he had sworn to marry the first woman who would have
him, to get even with Miss Rees, you know, and I haven't a shadow of
doubt this girl threw herself at his head."

"Very likely," agreed the Vicar's wife charitably. "Girls of that class
are so pushing. But as a wife for Mr. Rose and the mistress of
Greenriver she is eminently unsuitable."

"Dreadfully so," sighed Lady Martin. "I feel so sorry for the poor man
tied to a common, empty-headed little thing like that. They tell me she
is an absolute fool--and really in these days of evening classes and
polytechnics there is no excuse for such lamentable ignorance as she
displays. I hear that when they go out to dinner she sits as dumb as a
fish--or else commits such shocking solecisms that her poor husband
blushes for her."

"Really? I have had very little conversation with her," said the other
woman judicially. "And beyond noting her deplorable unsoundness on
religious matters I have had few opportunities of probing her mind."

"Her mind? She hasn't one," snapped Lady Martin. "She is one of those
mindless, soulless women who are simply parasites, clinging to men for
what they can get--a home, money, position--and give nothing in return
because they have nothing to give."

"It is indeed sad for Mr. Rose," said Mrs. Madgwick compassionately. "So
dreadfully boring for a clever man to be hampered with a silly wife--and
one with such unpresentable relations, too. What was her cousin like?
Quite--quite, I suppose."

"Oh, quite," agreed Lady Martin. "A red-faced, blowsy young woman with a
large bust and a pinched-in waist. Just the sort of girl you'd expect to
find in a draper's shop in Brixton. But now, I really feel quite rested.
Suppose we return to the Bazaar? I have one or two little purchases to
make, and possibly by now the things will be reduced in price."

The Vicar's wife rose with alacrity, and the two ladies moved away,
discussing the probable financial result of the Bazaar, and Toni was
left alone with her new knowledge.

CHAPTER XIV

At half-past five on that same afternoon Jim Herrick and his dog were
strolling across the meadows leading from the river to the village of
Willowhurst.

The sky, which had been brilliantly blue all day, was beginning to be
overcast, causing the energetic