lk, laughter, and
caresses, that conscience which he owed so greatly to the exertions of
"my tutor" pricked him not a little.

After losing themselves deliberately in the woods, they strolled back to
join the rest of the party. The sounds of conversation were already
audible through the trees in front of them, when they saw Mrs. Verrier
coming towards them. She was walking alone and did not perceive them.
Her eyes were raised and fixed, as though on some sight in front of
them. The bitterness, the anguish, one might almost call it, of her
expression, the horror in the eyes, as of one ghost-led, ghost-driven,
drew an exclamation from Roger.

"There's Mrs. Verrier! Why, how ill she looks!"

Daphne paused, gazed, and shrank. She drew him aside through the trees.

"Let's go another way. Madeleine's often strange." And with a
superstitious pang she wished that Madeleine Verrier's face had not been
the first to meet her in this hour of her betrothal.

PART II

THREE YEARS AFTER

CHAPTER V

In the drawing-room at Heston Park two ladies were seated. One was a
well-preserved woman of fifty, with a large oblong face, good features,
a double chin, and abundant gray hair arranged in waved _bandeaux_ above
a forehead which should certainly have implied strength of character,
and a pair of challenging black eyes. Lady Barnes moved and spoke with
authority; it was evident that she had been accustomed to do so all her
life; to trail silk gowns over Persian carpets, to engage expensive
cooks and rely on expensive butlers, with a strict attention to small
economies all the time; to impose her will on her household and the
clergyman of the parish; to give her opinions on books, and expect them
to be listened to; to abstain from politics as unfeminine, and to make
up for it by the strongest of views on Church questions. She belonged to
an English type common throughout all classes--quite harmless and
tolerable when things go well, but apt to be soured and twisted by
adversity.

And Lady Barnes, it will be remembered, had known adversity. Not much of
it, nor for long together; but in her own opinion she had gone through
"great trials," to the profit of her Christian character. She was quite
certain, now, that everything had been for the best, and that Providence
makes no mistakes. But that, perhaps, was because the "trials" had only
lasted about a year; and then, so far as they were pecuniary, the
marriage of her s