"Dear--Mrs. Fitzpiers," said Felice Charmond, with some inward turmoil

which stopped her speech. "I have not seen you for a long time."

She held out her hand tentatively, while Grace stood like a wild animal

on first confronting a mirror or other puzzling product of

civilization. Was it really Mrs. Charmond speaking to her thus? If it

was, she could no longer form any guess as to what it signified.

"I want to talk with you," said Mrs. Charmond, imploringly, for the

gaze of the young woman had chilled her through. "Can you walk on with

me till we are quite alone?"

Sick with distaste, Grace nevertheless complied, as by clockwork and

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they moved evenly side by side into the deeper recesses of the woods.

They went farther, much farther than Mrs. Charmond had meant to go; but

she could not begin her conversation, and in default of it kept walking.

"I have seen your father," she at length resumed. "And--I am much

troubled by what he told me."

"What did he tell you? I have not been admitted to his confidence on

anything he may have said to you."

"Nevertheless, why should I repeat to you what you can easily divine?"

"True--true," returned Grace, mournfully. "Why should you repeat what

we both know to be in our minds already?"

"Mrs. Fitzpiers, your husband--" The moment that the speaker's tongue

touched the dangerous subject a vivid look of self-consciousness

flashed over her, in which her heart revealed, as by a lightning gleam,

what filled it to overflowing. So transitory was the expression that

none but a sensitive woman, and she in Grace's position, would have had

the power to catch its meaning. Upon her the phase was not lost.

"Then you DO love him!" she exclaimed, in a tone of much surprise.

"What do you mean, my young friend?"

"Why," cried Grace, "I thought till now that you had only been cruelly

flirting with my husband, to amuse your idle moments--a rich lady with

a poor professional gentleman whom in her heart she despised not much

less than her who belongs to him. But I guess from your manner that

you love him desperately, and I don't hate you as I did before."

"Yes, indeed," continued Mrs. Fitzpiers, with a trembling tongue,

"since it is not playing in your case at all, but REAL. Oh, I do pity

you, more than I despise you, for you will s-s-suffer most!"




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