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wood—for the spring? I am sure it is; it’s such a dull wood now; nothing grows there you know except a few bluebells. Won’t it be too wonderful to pick anemones and primroses? He says we shall.—Norah thinks he is really settling in and beginning to like it here, and if he is it must be because of you.’

A pang shot through Monica’s heart as she heard the happy babble. Was it possible—even yet—that it was because of her? Was it the tired dog laying its head in her hand? But for Clive, how little power the past would have had to harm the present, if that were so. A dark confusion hung before her eyes, obscuring Celia and the light fairy-tale, bringing back the thoughts of the wood;—that apprehension of leaving Clive behind her if she went on with Captain Ingpen. To stay her hand now would be to leave Clive behind; it would be to betray Clive if she paused to listen to the voices of pity and tenderness that whispered in her heart. He was a crafty, an ambiguous, an unscrupulous man, and she remembered suddenly—Celia’s fond words of praise brought it back, placing her in a category where beauty still had power—that a thread of flame had passed between them, quenched from all rising, as if by a pressure from her foot, yet, per-