t the usual time, Kate entered, she moved across the room to
light the lamps; but Toni sent her away with this part of her duty
undone. To-night Toni wished to sit in the firelight. The fog had
thickened in the last hour, and now it pressed against the windows like
a chill, ghostly presence, hiding the garden, the river, the trees in
thick and clammy folds. Looking across the room from her seat by the
fire Toni shivered; and it seemed unkind of Fate to ordain that her last
memories of Greenriver should be shrouded in the cold and creeping mist.

She turned back to the fire with a shiver; and sat gazing into the
leaping flames, while her tea grew cold and the hands of the clock crept
inexorably onwards.

At half-past five she must leave the house. True, the meeting-place was
distant barely a quarter of a mile, but Owen might return early, and she
had no desire to run the risk of meeting him.

A short cut over the fields would both shorten the way and minimize the
danger of running into her husband; and Toni looked up, startled, when
the silver clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour of five.

Only thirty minutes, and her life at Greenriver would come to an end.
Never again would she roam through the beautiful old house, never sit in
this charming, panelled room, with its ghostly yet alluring fragrance as
of bygone lavender and roses. Never again would she wander in the
garden, revelling in the beauties of colour and scent and form which
made so lovely a picture in the glorious setting of turf and river.
Never again would she stroll beneath the tall trees in the summer dusk,
while the owls hooted eerily and the nightingale murmured luscious
love-songs to the dreaming roses. The river would know her no more;
never again would her feet tread the towing-path where in the early
morning she had been used to saunter, with her faithful Jock by her
side----

Ah! At the thought of Jock, Toni uttered a little cry. She had forgotten
him until this moment--his dear canine image blurred by a mist of
thoughts and tears; but now she remembered him only too well; and her
heart was pierced by the thought of his fidelity--to be, alas, so poorly
rewarded. Owen would be good to him, of course. He would be well fed and
kindly treated, since everyone in the house had a soft corner for the
jolly, riotous, affectionate Airedale; but he would miss his own loving
mistress; and Toni could not bear to think of the wistful expression his
honest