ve her with its sunny windows and its pointed gables. Perhaps, after
all the sordid shifts and schemes of her previous existence, she had
imagined she might lead an easier and a more respectable life within
those walls. Then she looked towards the long green terraces, the
valley, and the forest beyond. Her lip trembled, and turning suddenly,
she fixed her eyes with burning hatred on the man who had ousted her
from this pleasant place.

Then the coachman whipped up his horse, the dog-cart spun over the
smooth gravel between the lines of stiff, clipped yews, and she was
gone.

CHAPTER XXX.

Mr. Alwynn had returned from his eventful morning call at Vandon very
grave and silent. He shook his head when Ruth came to him in the study
to ask what the result had been, and said Dare would tell her himself on
his return from London, whither he had gone on business.

Ruth went back to the drawing-room. She had not strength or energy to
try to escape from Mrs. Alwynn. Indeed it was a relief not to be alone
with her own thoughts, and to allow her exhausted mind to be towed along
by Mrs. Alwynn's, the bent of whose mind resembled one of those
mechanical toy animals which, when wound up, will run very fast in any
direction, but if adroitly turned, will hurry equally fast the opposite
way. Ruth turned the toy at intervals, and the morning was dragged
through, Mrs. Alwynn in the course of it exploring every realm--known to
her--of human thought, now dipping into the future, and speculating on
spring fashions, now commenting on the present, now dwelling fondly on
the past, the gayly dressed, officer-adorned past of her youth.

There was a meal, and after that it was the afternoon. Ruth supposed
that some time there would be another meal, and then it would be
evening, but it was no good thinking of what was so far away. She
brought her mind back to the present. Mrs. Alwynn had just finished a
detailed account of a difference of opinion between herself and the
curate's wife on the previous day.

"And she had not a word to say, my dear, not a word--quite _hors de
combat_--so I let the matter drop. And you remember that beautiful pig
we killed last week? You should have gone to look at it hanging up,
Ruth, rolling in fat, it was. Well, it is better to give than to
receive, so I shall send her one of the pork-pies. And if you will get
me one of those round baskets which I took the dolls down to the
school-feast in--they are in t