Mr. Markham was a barrister in London, and came down to dinner most days—­not always, though; and his wife, still a young woman, was glad enough to find a companion in Bluebell.  Beauty, too, unless it excites jealousy, is agreeable to look at, and she soon became interested in the young Canadian.  But after a while she was puzzled by her.  There was a far-off, touching look in her eyes that had come there since marriage, and she was reserved about herself, though the stiffness of first acquaintance had long ago given way to affectionate intimacy.  For a girl apparently so frank to be at the same time so guarded suggested something to be concealed.  Mrs. Markham, being a woman, could not refrain from speculating about it.  She had elicited many lively descriptions of Bluebell’s life in Canada, and the children were never weary of sleighing and toboggining stories.  But these were general subjects; her narratives were never personal ones.

“By-the-bye,” observed Mrs. Markham, one day, “how strange it was that poor child, Evelyn Leighton, dying just as you were going there!  Her mother told me of it when she enclosed Mrs. Rolleston’s letter.  But you arrived in October, I think.  Where were you those few months?”

“I was staying with a friend,” replied Bluebell; but her hand shook and she became crimson.

Mrs. Markham did not fail to note this, and suspected that during that friendly visit some love passages might have arisen.  “She seems very sensitive about it,” thought the kind lady.  “I will get her to tell me some day.  It is such a shame ignoring that sort of thing with governesses, just as if it were a crime!  And if there is really anything, he might come and see her here sometimes.”

But Bluebell remained nervous and out of spirits the rest of that day.

One morning they were sitting together in the pleasant drawing-room; the children had a holiday, and were playing with their dogs out of doors; Mrs. Markham was colouring a design for her flower-beds, and lamenting the non-arrival of some seeds the postman was to have brought.  “The year is getting on,” murmured the aggrieved lady; “they really ought to be sown, and it is such a lovely day for gardening.”

“Let me go to Barton and fetch them,” cried Bluebell, who was always ready for a walk.  “I shall be there and back before luncheon.”

“Would you really?” said Mrs. Markham.  “But it looks so hot!  Are you sure you don’t mind?” And declaring it was the thing of all others she should enjoy, Bluebell set off.

It was one of those glorious, sultry days that sometimes occur early in the year, when summer seems actually to have arrived for the season—­a delusion invariably dispelled by the biting blasts of the blackthorn winter.  Lovely as it appeared it was a very oppressive day for a long walk; the white, glaring road seemed endless, and she half repented her offer.

Bluebell was scarcely so strong as she had been, and, having to hurry a good deal to be back in time for luncheon, was quite pale and exhausted on re-entering the drawing-room, prize in hand.