she touched it with her lips a sight that may have surprised the spirit of she said don t say anything of this to night except to your mother if you wish you understand dick s temper is so very unpleasant though she added with emphasis i hope you understand also that have no to make to you about him or anybody else i can t help it if he has always � pursued me he had better give up his pursuit now grumbled or there will be trouble quite so well i have no doubt he will when he comes to know only to tell the truth i would rather he didn t know while you are here i don t want a scene well if you like dearest said although i hate it i can go away to morrow morning and meet you in a few days in london and he told her of his shooting engagement that will suit very well indeed she said with relief although as you say it is horrid under our new circumstances especially as to catch that train at liverpool street you will have to leave by eight to morrow well you will be back on saturday so we must make the best of it good gracious look at the clock the dinner bell will ring in two minutes and you are not dressed go at once dear or � it will be noticed there that is enough go darling my lover who will be my husband go and went it was not so bad as it might have been thought to herself as rubbing her face with her lace handkerchief the while she watched the door close behind him and really he is very nice oh why can t i care for him more if i could we should be happy whereas now i don t know fancy his telling me that story what a curious man it must have been i have heard something of the sort dick suggested as much but i thought it was only one of his that s why cousin george hates him so � for he does hate him although he upon my marrying him yes i see it all now and i can remember that she was a very beautiful and a very foolish woman poor innocent came down to dinner ten minutes late to find that everybody had gone in arriving under cover of the fish he took the chair which was left for him by lady who always liked him to sit upon her right hand he noted with sorrow was some way off between two of the shooting guests and three places removed from dick who occupied the end of the table my dear said lady you are terribly late and i could wait no longer it spoils the cook now you shall have no soup as a punishment what did you go to sleep over that big book of yours up in the library g mai of tbe spirit he made some excuse and the matter passed off while he ate or pretended to eat his fish in silence indeed to him in his excited state of mind this splendid and rather new year s feast proved the strangest ot there was a curious air of about it could he after the wonderful and glorious thing that had happened to him utterly changing the vista of his life making it grand and noble as the columns of beneath the moon be the same who had gone out shooting that morning could the handsome german lady who sat by him on the cooking be the same passion torn doom haunted woman who told him how she had crawled upon her knees after her mocking husband for the prize of her infant s soul nay was it she who sat there at all was it not another whom he well remembered in that seat the lovely with her splendid unhappy eyes full of the of death and destruction those eyes that he felt still watched him he knew not whence him warning him he knew not of what was the gay and beautiful lady yonder who laughed and with her companions the same to whom he had vowed himself not an hour gone yes it must be so for there upon her finger gleamed his golden ring and what was more dick had seen it for he was watching her hand with a frown upon his handsome face why too wondered did another vision thrust itself upon him at this moment that of the temple of bathed in the evening lights which turned the waters of the red as though with blood and of the smiling and colossal statues of the fi monarch of long ago whose ring was set upon s hand in token of their of the dark white haired figure of old also who had not crossed his mind for many a day standing there among the rocks and calling to him that they would meet again calling to dick and also something that he could not understand and then turning to speak to a shadow behind her � � � � � � � � the meal ended at last and as was the custom in this house men and women left the table together to go into the great hall hung with and with where there would be music and perhaps dancing to follow and all might smoke who wished here were some other guests the village clergyman s daughters and two families from the neighbourhood making a party of twenty or thirty in all and here also was mrs who had dined in her own room and come down to see the old year out went to sit by his mother for a kind of shyness kept him away from she laid her hand on his and with a smile that made her grey and face 