. I enjoyed the walk. I am staying at The Manor."

"So I understand."

"And you are staying here?"

"There can be no doubt on that point."

"Do you think you are acting wisely?" she asked with great calmness.

"I might put the same question to you, Agnes, seeing that you have come
to live within three miles of my hermitage."

"It is because you are living in what you call your hermitage that I
have come," rejoined Agnes, with a slight color deepening her cheeks.
"Is it fair to me that you should shut yourself up and play the part of
the disappointed lover?"

Lambert, who had been touching up his picture here and there, laid down
his palette and brushes with ostentatious care, and faced her doggedly.
"I don't understand what you mean," he declared.

"Oh, I think you do; and in the hope that I may induce you, in justice
to me, to change your conduct, I have come over."

"I don't think you should have come," he observed in a low voice, and
threw himself on the couch with averted eyes.

Lady Agnes colored again. "You are talking nonsense," she said with some
sharpness. "There is no harm in my coming to see my cousin."

"We were more than cousins once."

"Exactly, and unfortunately people know that. But you needn't make
matters worse by so pointedly keeping away from me."

Lambert looked up quickly. "Do you wish me to see you often?" he asked,
and there was a new note in his voice which irritated her.

"Personally I don't, but--"

"But what?" He rose and stood up, very tall and very straight, looking
down on her with a hungry look in his blue eyes.

"People are talking," murmured the lady, and stared at the floor,
because she could not face that same look.

"Let them talk. What does it matter?"

"Nothing to you, perhaps, but to me a great deal. I have a husband."

"As I know to my cost," he interpolated.

"Then don't let me know it to _my_ cost," she said pointedly. "Sit down
and let us talk common sense."

Lambert did not obey at once. "I am only a human being, Agnes--"

"Quite so, and a man at that. Act like a man, then, and don't place the
burden on a woman's shoulders."

"What burden?"

"Oh, Noel, can't you understand?"

"I daresay I can if you will explain. I wish you hadn't come here
to-day. I have enough to bear without that."

"And have I nothing to bear?" she demanded, a flash of passion ruffling
her enforced calm. "Do you think that anything but the direst need
brought me here?"