d them, with an
anxious face. "And how will it end? A fortnight later she appeared at
church dressed like a lady of the Court, and attended by her sisters
and their governess, as if she had never appeared unattended in her
life, and prayed, good Lord, with such a majestic seriousness, and
listened to the sermon with such a face as made the parson forget his
text and fumble about for his notes in dire confusion. 'Twas thought
she might be going to play some trick to cause him to break down in the
midst of his discourse. But she did not, and sailed out of church as if
she had never missed a sermon since she was born."

"Perhaps," said my Lord Dunstanwolde, "perhaps her mind has changed and
'tis true she intends to live more gravely."

"Nay," answered Lord Twemlow, with a troubled countenance. "No such
good fortune. She doth not intend to keep it up--and how could she if
she would? A girl who hath lived as she hath, seeing no decent company
and with not a woman about her--though for that matter they say she
has the eye of a hawk and the wit of a dozen women, and the will to do
aught she chooses. But surely she could not keep it up!"

"Another woman could not," said Osmonde. "A woman who had not a clear,
strong brain and a wondrous determination--a woman who was weak or a
fool, or even as other women, could not. But surely--for all her
youth--there is no other woman like her."

_CHAPTER XV_

"_And 'twas the town rake and beauty--Sir John Oxon_"

That night he lay almost till 'twas morning, his eyes open upon the
darkness, since he could not sleep, finding it impossible to control
the thoughts which filled his mind. 'Twas a night whose still long
hours he never could forget in the years that followed, and 'twas not a
memory which was a happy one. He passed through many a curious phase of
thought, and more than once felt a pang of sorrow that he was now alone
as he had never thought of being, and that if suffering came, his
silent endurance of it must be a new thing. To be silent because one
does not wish to speak is a different matter from being silent because
one knows no creature dear and near enough to hear the story of one's
trouble. He realised now that the tender violet eyes which death had
closed would have wooed from his reserve many a thing it might have
been good to utter in words.

"She would always have understood," he thought. "She understood when
she cried out, 'It might have been!'"

He clasp