as she actually
afraid now that he might feel himself bound in future to take her child
spiritually from her? The suspicion of such a fear in her woke in him
a fresh anguish; it seemed a measure of the distance they had travelled
from that old perfect unity.

'She thinks I could even become in time her tyrant and torturer,' he
said to himself with measureless pain, 'and who knows--who can answer
for himself? Oh, the puzzle of living!'

When she came back into the room, pale and quiet, Catherine said
nothing, and Robert went to his letters. But after a while she opened
his study door.

'Robert, will you tell me what your stories are to be next week, and let
me put out the pictures?'

It was the first time she had made any such offer. He sprang up with a
flash in his gray eyes, and brought her a slip of paper with a list. She
took it without looking at him. But he caught her in his arms, and for a
moment in that embrace the soreness of both hearts passed away.

But if Catherine would not go, Elsmere was not left on this critical
occasion without auditors from his own immediate circle. On the evening
of Good Friday Flaxman had found his way to Bedford Square, and as
Catherine was out, was shown into Elsmere's study.

'I have come,' he announced, 'to try and persuade you and Mrs. Elsmere
to go down with me to Greenlaws to-morrow. My Easter party has come
to grief, and it would be a real charity on your part to come and
resuscitate it. Do! You look abominably fagged, and as if some country
would, do you good.'

'But I thought--' began Robert, taken aback.

'You thought,' repeated Flaxman coolly, 'that, your two sisters-in-law
were going down there with Lady Helen, to meet some musical folk. Well,
they are not coming. Miss Leyburn thinks your mother-in-law not very
well to-day, and doesn't like to come. And your younger sister prefers
also to stay in town. Helen is much disappointed, so am I. But--' And he
shrugged his shoulders.

Robert found it difficult to make a suitable remark. His sisters-in-law
were certainly inscrutable young women. This Easter party at Greenlaws,
Mr. Flaxman's country house, had been planned, he knew, for weeks. And
certainly nothing could be very wrong with Mrs. Leyburn, or Catherine
would have been warned.

'I am afraid your plans must be greatly put out,' he said, with some
embarrassment.

'Of course they are,' implied Flaxman, with a dry smile. He stood
opposite Elsmere, his hand