she could. I shall go and see her
sometimes. But she doesn't want me. She seems quite busy--and
satisfied.'

'Satisfied!' said Hester, indignantly.

'I mean with what she is doing--with her way of living.'

There was silence. But presently there was a stifled sob in the
darkness; and Hester knew that Nelly was thinking of those irrecoverable
weeks of which Bridget's cruelty had robbed her.

Then presently bedtime came, and Hester saw her guest to her room. But a
little while after, as she was standing by her own window she heard the
garden door open and perceived a small figure slipping down over the
lawn--a shadow among shadows--towards the path along the lake. And she
guessed of course that Nelly had gone out to take a last look at the
scene of her lost happiness, before her departure on the morrow.

Only twenty-two--with all her life before her--if she lived!

Of course, the probability was that she would live--and gradually
forget--and in process of time marry William Farrell. But Hester could
not be at all sure that the story would so work out. Supposing that the
passion of philanthropy, or the passion of religion, fastened upon
her--on the girlish nature that had proved itself with time to be of so
much finer and rarer temper than those about her had ever suspected?
Both passions are absorbing; both tend to blunt in many women the
natural instinct of the woman towards the man. Nelly had been an
old-fashioned, simple girl, brought up in a backwater of life. Now she
was being drawn into that world of the new woman--where are women
policemen, and women chauffeurs, and militant suffragists, and women in
overalls and breeches, and many other strange types. The war has shown
us--suddenly and marvellously--the adaptability of women. Would little
Nelly, too, prove as plastic as the rest, and in the excitement of
meeting new demands, and reaching out to new powers, forget the old
needs and sweetnesses?

It might be so; but in her heart of hearts, Hester did not believe it
would be so.

Meanwhile Nelly was wandering through the May dusk along the lake. She
walked through flowers. The scents of a rich earth were in the air;
daylight lingered, but a full and golden moon hung over Loughrigg in the
west; and the tranced water of the lake was marvellously giving back the
beauty amid which it lay--form, and colour, and distance--and all the
magic of the hour between day and night. There was no boat, alack, to
take her