, and kind even to those who had been unkind. To all of
them at Manor Cross she would be a real sister,--even to Lady Susanna
whom certainly she had not latterly loved. She would forgive
everybody,--except one. Adelaide Houghton she never could forgive, but
Adelaide Houghton should be her only enemy. It did not occur to her
that Jack De Baron had been very nearly as wicked as Adelaide
Houghton. She certainly did not intend that Jack De Baron should be one
of her enemies.

When she had been in London about a week or two Jack De Baron came to
see her. She knew that he had spent his Christmas at Curry Hall, and
she knew that Guss Mildmay had also been there. That Guss Mildmay
should have accepted such an invitation was natural enough, but she
thought that Jack had been very foolish. Why should he have gone to the
house when he had known that the girl whom he had promised to marry,
but whom he did not intend to marry, was there? And now what was to be
the result? She did not think that she could ask him; but she was
almost sure that he would tell her.

"I suppose you've been hunting?" she asked.

"Yes; they put up a couple of horses for me, or I couldn't have
afforded it."

"She is so good-natured."

"Mrs. Jones! I should think she was; but I'm not quite sure that she
intended to be very good-natured to me."

"Why not?" Mary, of course, understood it all; but she could not
pretend to understand it, at any rate as yet.

"Oh, I don't know. It was all fair, and I won't complain. She had got
Miss Green off her hands, and therefore she wanted something to do. I'm
going to exchange, Lady George, into an Indian regiment."

"You're not in earnest."

"Quite in earnest. My wing will be at Aden, at the bottom of the Red
Sea, for the next year or two. Aden, I'm told, is a charming place."

"I thought it was hot."

"I like hot places; and as I have got rather sick of society I shall do
very well there, because there's none. A fellow can't spend any money,
except in soda and brandy. I suppose I shall take to drink."

"Don't talk of yourself in that horrid way, Captain De Baron."

"It won't much matter to any one, for I don't suppose I shall ever come
back again. There's a place called Perim, out in the middle of the sea,
which will just suit me. They only send one officer there at a time,
and there isn't another soul in the place."

"How dreadful!"

"I shall apply to be left there for five years. I shall get through al