nattractive person, just as I am at
this day," answered Margaret in a voice of infinite gentleness. "But why
should you not know? There are more faithless than faithful lovers, may
be; the one I had grew tired of so dull a person and he went away. That
was all."

Then the two women moved away towards the house and the garden lay in
silence.

Mark Ratcliff sat stiff with astonishment.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed at last. "She flings all the blame on me! The
whole treachery was hers, and this is positively the coolest thing that
ever I heard. Faithless lover, indeed! When she dismissed me with actual
insult! But a woman with such a voice might do almost anything, you
plain and unattractive Miss Mildmay!"

He lit another cigar, rose in leisurely fashion and sought the way to
the front entrances of the villas. Under the shade of the
horse-chestnuts, which his critical eye decided to be, like himself and
Margaret, approaching the season of the sere and yellow leaf, he
loitered, smoking and watching, and counting up the years since he had
waited and watched for the same person before.

At last the right door opened and down the steps came a very
sober-looking and unconscious lady. She was thinking of nothing but the
dying girl from whom she had just parted.

"Margaret!"

She started violently. She knew the voice well enough, but after these
years it was impossible that it should be sounding here.

"Margaret!" he said again imperatively.

"Mr. Ratcliff," she faltered. "I did not expect to see you again."

"Your expectations seem to be a little curious," he replied, surveying
her coolly. "There is a great deal that you have to explain to me. What
do you mean by calling me a false lover?"

"Who told you that I accused you of falsehood?" she asked, dropping the
book she was carrying in her surprise. "If I did you could scarcely
contradict me, but this is not quite the place for such discussions."

He possessed himself of the book and led the way to the public gardens,
where the principal walks offered privacy enough at an hour when most of
the world was busy over tennis. Children and nursemaids do not count as
intruders on privacy.

"See here, Margaret, I was eavesdropping under the garden-fence, while
you talked with your sick friend, and I heard you giving me a famously
bad character. At least," suddenly recollecting himself, "unless I have
made a fool of myself, and it was somebody else you meant."

Margaret sai