eight. To have that face like a
spectre rise up before her, and Geoff's countenance averted, his little
eyes twitching to keep in the tears, was there anything in the world
worth that? Magdalen! ah, worse than Magdalen! for she poured out her
tears for what was past, whereas all this shame was the price at which
she was going to buy happiness to come.

And yet it was nothing wrong.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Mrs. Warrender and Chatty left the Warren in the end of the week in
which these events had taken place. They had a farewell visit from the
rector and Mrs. Wilberforce, which no doubt was prompted by kindness,
yet had other motives as well. The Warren looked its worst on the
morning when this visit was paid. It was a gray day, no sun visible,
the rain falling by intervals, the sky all neutral tinted, melting
in the gray distance into indefinite levels of damp soil and shivering
willows,--that is, where there was a horizon visible at all. But in the
Warren there was no horizon, nothing but patches of whitish gray seen
among the branches of the trees, upon which the rain kept up such an
endless, dismal patter as became unendurable after a time--a continual
dropping, the water dripping off the long branches, drizzling through
the leaves with incessant monotonous downfall. The Wilberforces came
picking their way through the little pools which alternated with dry
patches along all the approaches to the house, their wet umbrellas
making a moving glimmer of reflection in the damp atmosphere. Inside,
the rooms were all dark, as if it had been twilight. Boxes stood about
in the hall, packed and ready, and there were those little signs of
neglect in the usual garnishing of the rooms which is so apt to occur
when there is a departure. Chatty, with her hat on, stood arranging a
few very wet flowers in a solitary vase, as if by way of keeping up
appearances, the usual decorations of this kind being all cleared away.
"Theo is so little at home," she said, by way of explanation, "he would
get no good of them." Afterwards when she thought of it, Chatty was
sorry that she had mentioned her brother at all.

"Ah, Theo! We have been hearing wonderful things of Theo," said Mrs.
Wilberforce, as Mrs. Warrender approached from the drawing-room to meet
them and bid them enter. "I have never been so surprised in my life;
and yet I don't know why I should be surprised. Of course it makes his
conduct all quite reasonable when we look back upon