om her own gate, and she walked
there without any attendant. She had, however, sent word to the sexton
to say that she would be there, and the old man was ready to show her
into the family pew. She wore a thick veil, and was dressed, of course,
in all the deep ceremonious woe of widowhood. As she walked up the
centre of the church she thought of her dress, and told herself that all
there would know how it had been between her and her husband. She was
pretending to mourn for the man to whom she had sold herself; for the
man who through happy chance had died so quickly, leaving her with the
price in her hand! All of course knew that, and all thought that they
knew, moreover, that she had been foully false to her bargain, and had
not earned the price! That, also, she told herself. But she went through
it, and walked out of the church among the village crowd with her head
on high.

Three days afterward, she wrote to the clergyman, asking him to call on
her. She had come, she said, to live in the parish, and hoped to be
able, with his assistance, to be of some use among the people. She would
hardly know how to act without some counsel from him. The schools might
be all that was excellent, but if there was anything required she hoped
he would tell her. On the following morning the clergyman called, and,
with many thanks for her generosity, listened to her plans, and accepted
her subsidies. But he was a married man, and he said nothing of his
wife, nor during the next week did his wife come to call on her. She was
to be left desolate by all, because men had told lies of her!

She had the price in her hands, but she felt herself tempted to do as
Judas did--to go out and hang herself.

Chapter XIII

A Visitor Calls At Ongar Park

It will be remembered that Harry Clavering, on returning one evening to
his lodgings in Bloomsbury Square, had been much astonished at finding
there the card of Count Pateroff, a man of whom he had only heard, up to
that moment, as the friend of the late Lord Ongar. At first he had been
very angry with Lady Ongar, thinking that she and this count were in
some league together, some league of which he would greatly disapprove;
but his anger had given place to a new interest when he learned direct
from herself that she had not seen the count, and that she was simply
anxious that he, as her friend, should have an interview with the man.
He had then become very eager in the matter, offering to