zed, bent over and whispered
encouragingly, 'Don't mind it, Tabitha. Shall I take you out into the
air?' She declined his offer, and presently the sermon came to an end.

Swithin lingered behind the rest of the congregation sufficiently long to
see Lady Constantine, accompanied by her brother, the Bishop, the
Bishop's chaplain, Mr. Torkingham, and several other clergy and ladies,
enter to the grand luncheon by the door which admitted from the
churchyard to the lawn of Welland House; the whole group talking with a
vivacity all the more intense, as it seemed, from the recent two hours'
enforced repression of their social qualities within the adjoining
building.

The young man stood till he was left quite alone in the churchyard, and
then went slowly homeward over the hill, perhaps a trifle depressed at
the impossibility of being near Viviette in this her one day of gaiety,
and joining in the conversation of those who surrounded her.

Not that he felt much jealousy of her situation, as his wife, in
comparison with his own. He had so clearly understood from the beginning
that, in the event of marriage, their outward lives were to run on as
before, that to rebel now would have been unmanly in himself and cruel to
her, by adding to embarrassments that were great enough already. His
momentary doubt was of his own strength to achieve sufficiently high
things to render him, in relation to her, other than a patronized young
favourite, whom she had married at an immense sacrifice of position. Now,
at twenty, he was doomed to isolation even from a wife; could it be that
at, say thirty, he would be welcomed everywhere?

But with motion through the sun and air his mood assumed a lighter
complexion, and on reaching home he remembered with interest that Venus
was in a favourable aspect for observation that afternoon.

XXV

Meanwhile the interior of Welland House was rattling with the progress of
the ecclesiastical luncheon.

The Bishop, who sat at Lady Constantine's side, seemed enchanted with her
company, and from the beginning she engrossed his attention almost
entirely. The truth was that the circumstance of her not having her
whole soul centred on the success of the repast and the pleasure of
Bishop Helmsdale, imparted to her, in a great measure, the mood to ensure
both. Her brother Louis it was who had laid out the plan of entertaining
the Bishop, to which she had assented but indifferently. She was
secretly