ssible now
that they should be strangers to each other." "Impossible that we should
be strangers," she said almost out aloud. "Why impossible? I know no
such impossibility." After that she carefully burned both the letter and
the note.

She remained at Ongar Park something over six weeks, and then, about the
beginning of May, she went back to London. No one had been to see her,
except Mr. Sturm, the clergyman of the parish; and he, though something
almost approaching to an intimacy had sprung up between them, had never
yet spoken to her of his wife. She was not quite sure whether her rank
might not deter him--whether under such circumstances as those now in
question, the ordinary social rules were not ordinarily broken--whether
a countess should not call on a clergyman's wife first, although the
countess might be the stranger; but she did not dare to do as she would
have done, had no blight attached itself to her name. She gave,
therefore, no hint; she said no word of Mrs. Sturm, though her heart was
longing for a kind word from some woman's mouth. But she allowed herself
to feel no anger against the husband, and went through her parish work,
thanking him for his assistance.

Of Mr. Giles she had seen very little, and since her misfortune with
Enoch Gubby, she had made no further attempt to interfere with the wages
of the persons employed. Into the houses of some of the poor she had
made her way, but she fancied that they were not glad to see her. They
might, perhaps, have all heard of her reputation, and Gubby's daughter
may have congratulated herself that there was another in the parish as
bad as herself, or perhaps, happily, worse. The owner of all the wealth
around strove to make Mrs. Button become a messenger of charity between
herself and some of the poor; but Mrs. Button altogether declined the
employment, although, as her mistress had ascertained, she herself
performed her own little missions of charity with zeal. Before the
fortnight was over, Lady Ongar was sick of her house and her park,
utterly disregardful of her horses and oxen, and unmindful even of the
pleasant stream which in these Spring days rippled softly at the bottom
of her gardens.

She had undertaken to be back in London early in May, by appointment
with her lawyer, and had unfortunately communicated the fact to Madame
Gordeloup. Four or five days before she was due in Bolton Street, her
mindful Sophie, with unerring memory, wrote to her, decl