She had been miserable enough then—­one alone in the world and one against the world.  But how gladly she would have exchanged her present state for the worst of her days then!  How she wished that she had died with mamma, or, living, had not taken it as her duty to avenge those wrongs which the saints allowed!  Oh, what a tangled dream it all was! she so hideously guilty in fact, and yet that thought of hers, if unreal and insane, that had not been a sin.

But she must wake to the reality of the present, not sit here dreaming over the past and its mystery of loving crime.  She must go on as if life were a mere holiday-time of peace with her, where no avenging Furies followed her, lurking in the shadows, no sorrows threatened her, looking out with scared, scarred faces from the distance.  She must carry her burden to the end, remembering that it was one of her own making, and for self-respect must be borne with that courage of despair which lets no one see what is suffered.  Of what good to dream, to lament?  She must live with dignity while she chose to live.  When her grief had grown too great for her strength, then she could take counsel with herself whether the fire of life was worth the trouble of keeping alight, or might not rather be put out without more ado.

CHAPTER XXX.

MAYA—­DELUSION.

Leam was not dedicated to peace to-day.  As she turned out of the road she came upon the rectory pony-carriage—­Adelaide driving Josephine and little Fina—­just as it had halted in the highway for Josephine to speak to her brother.

Adelaide was looking very pretty.  Her delicate pink cheeks were rather more flushed and her blue eyes darker and fuller of expression than usual.  Change of air had done her good, and Edgar’s evident admiration was even a better stimulant.  She and her mother had ended their absence from North Aston by a visit to the lord lieutenant of the county, and she was not sorry to be able to speak familiarly of certain great personages met there as her co-guests—­the prime minister for one and an archbishop for another.  And as Edgar was, she knew, influenced by the philosophy of fitness more than most men, she thought the prime minister and the archbishop good cards to play at this moment.

Edgar was listening to her, pleased, smiling, thinking how pretty she looked, and taking her social well-being and roll-call of grand friendships as gems that enriched him too—­flowers in his path as well as roses in her hand, and as a sunny sky overarching both alike.  She really was a very charming girl—­just the wife for an English country gentleman—­just the mistress for a place like the Hill, the heart of the man owning the Hill not counting.