ge modestly her warm white
shoulders gleamed. Her arms were very beautiful. She remembered as
she sat in front of the glass, while the maid dressed her hair, that
her husband had said she was more beautiful than the girl he had
married.

She went back to the drawing-room where Shot lay, stretched on the
skin-rug before the fire, now and again lifting his head to look at
her. The Poms were in their baskets either side of the fireplace. It
was very quiet. Not a sound disturbed the silence of the room beyond
the ticking of the clock over the mantelpiece and the purring and
murmuring of the fire.

She had a book in her hand, but she did not read it. She was too
concerned about real actual happenings for the book to keep her
attention. She held it indeed so that she might seem to be reading if
a servant came into the room. She wondered if the story of the tramp's
charge against Sir Shawn had reached the kitchen. Very probably it
had. The police would know of it and from them it would spread to the
village and the countryside. The people were insatiable of gossip,
especially where their "betters" were involved. Probably the
tramp--Baker, was it?--poor Susan's husband and Georgie's father--had
made the statement at every place where he had satisfied his thirst.
What a horrid thing to have happened! How would Shawn take the
accusation? Of course it was absurd--nevertheless it was intolerable.

Reilly came in presently and asked if her Ladyship would have dinner at
the usual hour. It still wanted a quarter of the hour--eight o'clock.

She answered in the affirmative. Shawn was always vexed if she waited
for him when he was late, wishing she would remember that he might be
detained by twenty things. It would be something to do and would
suspend for a while the listening which made her head ache. She hated
these hours of listening. Of late years she had forgotten to be
nervous when Sir Shawn was not in good time. He had said that he would
not give her the habit of his punctual return lest a chance
unpunctuality should terrify her. To-night she had only gone back to
the listening because Shawn was riding Mustapha. Besides, the news she
had to give him had upset her nerves out of their usual tranquil course.

The rain beat hard against the windows. She hoped Shawn was not
crossing the bog in that rainstorm. Some horses hated the wind and the
rain and would not face them. It would be so terribly easy for