this reminiscence made him ask Miss Brent, when her
list was ended, if she did not think that so continuous a succession of
visitors was too tiring for Bessy.

"I sometimes think it tires her more than she knows; but I hope she can
be persuaded to take better care of herself now that Mrs. Ansell has
come back."

Amherst halted abruptly. "Is Mrs. Ansell here?"

"She arrived from Europe today."

"And Mr. Langhope too, I suppose?"

"Yes. He came from Newport about ten days ago."

Amherst checked himself, conscious that his questions betrayed the fact
that he and his wife no longer wrote to each other. The same thought
appeared to strike Justine, and they walked across the lawn in silence,
hastening their steps involuntarily, as though to escape the oppressive
weight of the words which had passed between them. But Justine was
unwilling that this fruitless sense of oppression should be the final
outcome of their talk; and when they reached the upper terrace she
paused and turned impulsively to Amherst. As she did so, the light from
an uncurtained window fell on her face, which glowed with the inner
brightness kindled in it by moments of strong feeling.

"I am sure of one thing--Bessy will be very, very glad that you have
come," she exclaimed.

"Thank you," he answered.

Their hands met mechanically, and she turned away and entered the house.

XVII

BESSY had not seen her little girl that day, and filled with compunction
by Justine's reminder, she hastened directly to the school-room.

Of late, in certain moods, her maternal tenderness had been clouded by a
sense of uneasiness in the child's presence, for Cicely was the argument
most effectually used by Mr. Langhope and Mr. Tredegar in their efforts
to check the triumph of Amherst's ideas. Bessy, still unable to form an
independent opinion on the harassing question of the mills, continued to
oscillate between the views of the contending parties, now regarding
Cicely as an innocent victim and herself as an unnatural mother,
sacrificing her child's prospects to further Amherst's enterprise, and
now conscious of a vague animosity against the little girl, as the chief
cause of the dissensions which had so soon clouded the skies of her
second marriage. Then again, there were moments when Cicely's rosy bloom
reminded her bitterly of the child she had lost--the son on whom her
ambitions had been fixed. It seemed to her now that if their boy had
lived she might