flower-shows.

"I wonder how he likes the dusty days, and the crowded rooms, the
classical music, and high-art exhibitions?" thought Vixen savagely. "I
wonder how he likes being led about like a Pomeranian terrier? I don't
think I could endure it if I were a man. But I suppose when one is in
love----"

And then Vixen thought of their last talk together, and how little of
the lover's enthusiasm there was in Roderick's mention of his cousin.

"In the bottom of my heart I know that he is going to marry her for the
sake of her estate, or because his mother wished it and urged it, and
he was too weak-minded to go on saying No. I would not say it for the
world, or let anyone else say it in my hearing, but, in my heart of
hearts, I know he does not love her."

And then, after a thoughtful silence, she cried to the mute
unresponsive woods:

"Oh, it is wicked, abominable, mad, to marry without love!"

The woods spoke to her of Roderick Vawdrey. How often she had ridden by
his side beneath these spreading beech-boughs, dipping her childish
head, just as she dipped it to-day, under the low branches, steering
her pony carefully between the prickly holly-bushes, plunging deep into
the hollows where the dry leaves crackled under his hoofs.

"I fancied Rorie and I were to spend our lives together--somehow," she
said to herself. "It seems very strange for us to be quite parted."

She saw Mr. Vawdrey's name in the fashionable newspapers, in the lists
of guests at dinners and drums. London life suited him very well, no
doubt. She heard that he was a member of the Four-in-hand Club, and
turned out in splendid style at Hyde Park Corner. There was no talk yet
of his going into Parliament. That was an affair of the future.

Since that evening on which Mrs. Tempest announced her intention of
taking a second husband, Violet and Captain Winstanley had only met in
the presence of other people. The Captain had tried to infuse a certain
fatherly familiarity into his manner; but Vixen had met every attempt
at friendliness with a sullen disdain, which kept even Captain
Winstanley at arm's length.

"We shall understand each other better by-and-by," he said to himself,
galled by this coldness. "It would be a pity to disturb these halcyon
days by anything in the way of a scene. I shall know how to manage Miss
Tempest--afterwards."

He spoke of her, and to her, always as Miss Tempest. He had never
called her Violet since that night in the