"By her own people. It's decent of them not to cast her off."

"Oh, as for decency, they don't seem to have a shred of it amongst them. And the Hannays are not her own people. I thought I should be safe in going there after what you told me. And it was there I met her."

"I know.

They were most distressed about it." "And yet they received her, too, as if nothing had happened."

"Because nothing can happen now. They got rid of her when she was dangerous. She isn't dangerous any more. On the contrary, I believe her great idea now is to be respectable. I suppose they're trying to give her a lift up. You must admit it's nice of them."

"You think them nice?"

"I think that's nice of them. It's the sort of thing they do. They're kind people, if they're not the most spiritual I have met."

"You may cail it kindness, I call it shocking indifference. They're worse than the Ransomes. I don't believe the Ransomes know what's decent. The Hannays know, but they don't care. They're all dreadful people; and their sympathy with each other is the most dreadful thing about them. They hold together and stand up for each other, and are 'kind' to each other, because they all like the same low, vulgar, detestable things. That's why Mr. Hannay married Mrs. Hannay, and Mr. Ransome married Lady Cayley's sister. They're all admirably suited to each other, but not, my dear Edie, to you or me."

"They're certainly not your sort, I admit." "Nor yours either."

"No, nor mine either," said Edith, smiling. "Poor Anne, I'm sorry we've let you in for them."

"I'm not thinking only of myself.

is that you should be let in, too."

The terrible thing

"Oh, me-how can they harm me?" "They have harmed you."

"How?"

"By keeping other people away." "What people?"

"The nice people you should have known. You were entitled to the very best. The Eliotts and the Gardners -those are the people who should have been your friends, not the Hannays and the Ransomes; and not, believe me, darling, Mr. Gorst."

For a moment Edith unveiled the tragic suffering in her eyes. It passed, and left her gaze grave and lucid and

serene.

"What do you know of Mr. Gorst?"

"Enough, dear, to see that he isn't fit for you to know." "Poor Charlie, that's what he's always saying himself. I've known him too long, you see, not to know him now. Years and years, my dear, before I knew you." "It was through Mrs. Eliott that I knew you, remember."

"Because you were determined to know me. It was through you that I knew Mrs. Eliott. Before that, she never made the smallest attempt to know me better or to show me any kindness. Why should she?"

"Well, my dear, if you kept her at arm's length-if you let her see, for instance, that you preferred Mr. Gorst's society to hers"

"Do you think I let her see it?"

"No, I don't. And it wouldn't enter her head. But,

considering that she can't receive Mr. Gorst into her own

"Why should she?"

"Edie-if she cannot, how can you?"

Edith closed her eyes.

but not now."

"I'll tell you some day, dear,

Anne did not press her. discuss Mr. Gorst with her, he was to be received into her house no more. She saw Edith growing tender over his very name; she felt that there would be tears and entreaties, and she was determined that no entreaties and no tears should move her to a base surrender. Her pause was meant to banish the idea of Mr. Gorst from Edith's mind, but it only served to fix it more securely there.

She had not the courage to nor the heart to tell her that

"Edith," she said presently, "I will keep my promise." "Which promise?" Edith was mystified. Her mind unwillingly renounced the idea of Mr. Gorst, and the promise could not possibly refer to him.

"The promise I made to you about Walter."

"My dear one, I never thought you would break it." "I shall never break it. I've accepted Walter once for all, and in spite of everything. But I will not accept these people you say I've been let in for. I will not know them. And I shall have to tell him so."

"Why should you tell him anything? He doesn't want you to take them to your bosom. He sees how impos

sible they are."

"Ah-if he sees that."

"Believe me" (Edith said it wearily), "he sees everything."

"If he does," thought Anne, "it will be easier to convince him."

THE

over.

CHAPTER XV

HE task was so far unpleasant to her that she was anxious to secure the first opportunity and get it

Her moment would come with the two hours after dinner in the study.

It did not come that evening; for Majendie telegraphed that he had been detained in town, and would dine at the Club. He did not come home till Anne (who sat up till midnight waiting for that opportunity) had gone tired to bed.

Her determination gathered strength with the delay, and when her moment came with the next evening, it came gloriously. Majendie gave himself over into her hands by bringing Gorst, of all people, back with him to dine.

The brilliant prodigal approached her with a little embarrassed youthful air of humility and charm; the air almost of taking her into his confidence over something unfortunate and absurd. He had evidently counted on the ten minutes before dinner when he would be left alone with her. He selected a chair opposite to her, leaning forward in it at ease, his nervousness visible only in the flushed hands clasped loosely on his knees, his eyes turned upon his hostess with a look of almost infantile candour. It was as if he mutely implored her to forget yesterday's encounter, and on no account to mention in what compromising company he had been seen. His engaging smile seemed to take for granted that she was

a lady of pity and understanding, who would never have the heart to give a poor prodigal away. His eyes intimated that Mrs. Majendie knew what it amounted to, that awful prodigality of his.

But Mrs. Majendie had no illusions concerning sinners with engaging smiles and beautiful manners. And with every tick of the clock he deepened the impression of his insolence and levity. His very charm and the flush and brilliance that were part of it went to swell the prodigal's account. The instinct that had wakened in her knew them, the lights and colours, the heralding banners and vivid signs, all the paraphernalia of triumphant sin. She turned upon her guest the cold eyes of a condign destiny. By the time dinner was served it had dawned on Gorst that he was looking in Mrs. Majendie for something that was not there. He might even have had some inkling of her resolution; he sat at his friend's table so consciously on sufferance, with an oppressed, extinguished air, eating his dinner as if it choked him, like the last sad meal in a beloved house.

Majendie, too, felt himself drawn in and folded in the gloom cast by his wife's protesting presence. The shadow of it wrapped them even after Anne had left the dining-room, as though her indignant spirit had remained behind to preserve her protest. Gorst had changed his oppression for a nervous restlessness intolerable to Majendie.

"My dear fellow," he said, "what is the matter with you?"

"How should I know?" said Gorst with a spurt of illtemper. "I'm not a nerve specialist."

Majendie looked at him attentively.

"I say, you

mustn't go in for nerves, you know; you can't afford it."