r pressure, or in
the presence of unregarding power. Hers was one. They require a
clear space round them, the removal of everything which may
overmaster them, and constant delicate attention.'--MARK
RUTHERFORD.

Audrey had no cause to regret her concession. Mrs. Blake quieted down
the moment she resumed her seat; and though the remainder of her
conversation concerned herself and Cyril, she did not venture again on
any dangerous allusion.

It was only when Audrey said that she must really go, as she had
promised her mother to be back by tea-time, that she made an attempt to
coax her into sending Cyril a message; but Audrey's strong sense of
honour made her proof against this temptation. She would send him no
message at all. Even if she thought it right to do so, how could she
rely on Mrs. Blake's veracity? how could she be sure that it might not
be delivered with annotations from her own fertile brain?

'But you will at least send him your love?' pleaded Mrs. Blake.

'There is no need for me to send him that,' returned Audrey with rising
colour. 'Indeed, there is no need of any message at all: Cyril and I
understand each other.'

And then Mrs. Blake cried a little and called her a hard-hearted girl,
but relented the next minute, and kissed her affectionately.

'You will tell Mollie to come to me as usual to-morrow?' were Audrey's
parting words, and Mrs. Blake nodded assent.

As Audrey opened the green gate some impulse made her look back. Mrs.
Blake was still on the threshold, watching her, and her large dark eyes
were full of tears. There was something pathetic in her appearance. With
a sudden impulse, for which she was unable to account, Audrey went back
and gave her another kiss.

'We do not know when we shall meet again,' she said in a low voice. 'Try
to be as happy as you can, and to make him happy too.'

She was glad that it was over, she told herself, as she walked back to
Woodcote; nevertheless, she could not shake off a certain sense of
depression. That dear Gray Cottage--how she had grown to love it, and
what happy hours she had passed there, sitting by that window and
watching the pigeons fluttering among the arches! Her heart was soft
towards the woman she had left. Could she help it, she thought, if her
moral sense were blunted and distorted? There was something defective
and warped in her nature--something that seemed to make her less
accountable than other people. Truth was