that it had remained for him a scene unique and
unapproached. In that one hour the "muddy vesture" of common feeling and
desire that closed in his manhood had taken fire and burnt to a pure
flame, fusing, so it seemed, body and soul. He had not thought of it for
years, but now that he was made to think of it, the old thrill
returned--a memory of something heavenly, ecstatic, far transcending the
common hours and the common earth.

The next moment he had thrown the recollection angrily from him.
Stooping to his wife, he kissed her warmly. "Look here, Daphne! I wish
you'd let that woman alone! Have I ever looked at anyone but you, old
girl, since that day at Mount Vernon?"

Daphne let him hold her close: but all the time, thoughts--ugly
thoughts--like "little mice stole in and out." The notion of Roger and
that woman, in the past, engaged--always together, in each other's arms,
tormented her unendurably.

* * * * *

She did not, however, say a word to Lady Barnes on the subject. The
morning following Mrs. Fairmile's visit that lady began a rather awkward
explanation of Chloe Fairmile's place in the family history, and of the
reasons for Roger's silence and her own. Daphne took it apparently with
complete indifference, and managed to cut it short in the middle.

Nevertheless she brooded over the whole business; and her resentment
showed itself, first of all, in a more and more drastic treatment of
Heston, its pictures, decorations and appointments. Lady Barnes dared
not oppose her any more. She understood that if she were thwarted, or
even criticized, Daphne would simply decline to live there, and her own
link with the place would be once more broken. So she withdrew angrily
from the scene, and tried not to know what was going on. Meanwhile a
note of invitation had been addressed to Daphne by the Duchess, and had
been accepted; Roger had been reminded, at the point of the bayonet,
that go he must; and Dr. Lelius had transferred himself from Heston to
Upcott, and the companionship of Mrs. Fairmile.

* * * * *

It was the last day of the Frenches' visit. Roger and Herbert French had
been trying to get a brace or two of partridges on the long-neglected
and much-poached estate; and on the way home French expressed a hope
that, now they were to settle at Heston, Roger would take up some of the
usual duties of the country gentleman. He spoke in the half-jesting