things have been going very well out there. You must remember, mother, that Baynton's scrapes never affect his work." He spoke absently, and she realised that he wanted to be away, by himself, to think over some of the things she had said to him, and so she turned and went slowly up the staircase, and passed through into her own bedroom without turning up the light. Walking over to her window, she gazed down into the moonlit space beneath. But she could see no moving shadow, hear no sound. Oliver had padded away across the grass, making for the lonely downs which encircled, on three sides, the house. Before turning away from her window, Mrs. Tropenell covered her face with her hands; she was fearfully moved, shaken to the depths of her heart. For the first time Oliver had bared his soul before her. She thrilled with pride in the passionate, wayward, in a measure nobly selfless and generous human being whom she had created. How strange, how amazing that Laura made no response to that ardent, exalted passion! But if amazing, then also, from what ought to be every point of view, how fortunate! And yet, unreasonable though it was, Mrs. Tropenell felt sharply angered with Laura, irritated by that enigmatic, self-absorbed, coldness of hers. What a poor maimed creature, to be so blind, so imperceptive, to the greatest thing in the world! Dislike, a physical distaste for the unlucky Godfrey which seemed sometimes to amount to horror, were this beautiful woman's nearest approach to passion.Chapter VI

At Rosedean, the small, mid-Victorian house which every one going to and fro between Freshley Manor and Lawford Chase was bound to pass by, Mrs. Winslow sat in her drawing-room waiting for Godfrey Pavely. He was coming in to see her on his way home from Pewsbury, where, at the Bank, he spent each day at least six of his waking hours.

All the summer, up to to-day, Mrs. Winslow had always had tea in the garden, but there was now a freshness in the air, and she thought they would find it more comfortable indoors than out. Still, she had opened wide the long French window, and the wind blew in, laden with pungent autumnal scents.

Katty--the old childish name still clung to her--was a very clever woman. She possessed the power of getting the utmost out of the people round her, whether they were friends, acquaintances, or servants. Her little garden was exquisitely kept, and there was no month of the year when it did not look charming. Her little house, so far as was possible on very limited means, was perfectly ordered.

Perhaps one secret of her success lay in the fact that she 

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