“Your cousin,” says Rylton, altering the phrase that would have made it in his anger, “your lover.”

“I have not been crying because of Tom,” says Tita coldly, “though I am very sorry he is going.  He loves me, I think."

“Do you?” says Rylton.  A sarcastic smile crosses his lips “And you?  Do you love him?  No doubt cousins are charming possessions.  And so I find you crying because your dear possession is going, and because, no doubt, you were confiding to him what a desperate monster a husband can be.”

There is hardly anything in his life afterwards that Rylton is so ashamed of as this; even now in the heat of the terrible anger that leads him so to forget himself, he cowers before the girl’s eyes.

“Is that what people do in your set?” says she coldly—­icily.  “In the charmed circle within which your mother tells me I am not fit to enter?  If so, I am glad I do not belong to it.  Set your mind at ease, Maurice.  I have not told Tom anything about you.  I have not even told him what a——­” She pauses.  A flash from her eyes enters his.  “I have told him nothing—­nothing,” says she, running past him into the house.

CHAPTER XIII.

HOW A LITTLE SPARRING IS DONE AMONGST THE GUESTS AT OAKDEAN; AND HOW TOM HESCOTT TELLS A STORY.

Meantime all the others are sitting out in the garden, gossiping to their hearts’ content.  They had tried tennis, but the courts are rather soft now; and though an Indian summer has fallen upon us, still it has not sufficed to dry up all the moisture caused by the late rains.

The little thatched hut at the end of the gardens, where the sun is now blazing, has drawn them all into a net, as it were.  It is an off day, when there is no shooting, and the women are therefore jubilant, and distinctly in the ascendant.  The elder Lady Rylton is not present, which adds to the hilarity of the hour, as in spite of her wonderful juvenility she is by no means a favourite.  Miss Gower, however, is—­which balances the situation.

“I don’t believe I ever felt so sorry for leaving any place,” says Mrs. Chichester (who is always talking) with a soft but prolonged sigh—­the sigh that is meant to be heard.  She casts a languishing glance at Marryatt as she says this.  He is not invited to the next country house to which she is bound.  He returns her glance fourfold, upon which she instantly dives behind Mrs. Bethune’s back, on the pretence of speaking to Margaret, but in reality to hide her face.

“Yes; I feel sorry too,” says Colonel Neilson.  “Where are you going?”

“To the Hastings’,” says Mrs. Chichester, who has now emerged from behind Marian’s back, with the same sad face as before. "You know her.  Matilda Bruce!”

“Bless me!  Has she got married?” says Colonel Neilson, who is really the kindest-hearted man alive.