Is it true that whenever we are about to do an ill or unjust deed a shadow of the fruits it will bring comes over us as a warning?  Some people will tell you so.  A vision of the future seemed to rest on Maude Kirton as she sat there; and for the first time all the injustice of the approaching act rose in her mind as a solemn omen.  The true facts were terribly distinct.  Her own dislike (it was indeed no less than dislike) of the living lord, her lasting love for the dead one.  All the miserable stratagems they had been guilty of to win him; the dishonest plotting and planning.  What was she about to do?  For her own advancement, to secure herself a position in the great world, and not for love, she was about to separate two hearts, which but for her would have been united in this world and the next.  She was thrusting herself upon Lord Hartledon, knowing that in his true heart it was another that he loved, not her.  Yes, she knew that full well.  He admired her beauty, and was marrying her; marrying partly in pique against Anne Ashton; partly in blindfold submission to the deep schemes of her mother, brought to bear on his yielding nature.  All the injustice done to Anne Ashton was in that moment beating its refrain upon her heart; and a thought crossed her—­would God not avenge it?  Another time she might have smiled at the thought as fanciful:  it seemed awfully real now.  “I might give Val up yet,” she murmured; “there’s just time.”

She did not act upon the suggestion.  Whether it was her warning, or whether it was not, she allowed it to slip from her.  Hartledon’s broad lands and coronet resumed their fascination over her soul; and when her door was tried, Lady Maude had lost herself in that famous Spanish chateau we have all occupied on occasion, touching the alterations she had mentally planned in their town-house.

“Goodness, Maude, what do you lock yourself in for?”

Maude opened the door, and the countess-dowager floundered in.  She was resplendent in one of her old yellow satin gowns, a white turban with a silver feather, and a pink scarf thrown on for ornament.  The colours would no doubt blend well by candlelight.

“Come, Maude.  There’s no time to be lost.”

“Are the men gone?”

“Yes, they are gone; no thanks to Hartledon, though.  He sat mooning on, never giving them the least hint to depart.  Priddon told me so.  I’ll tell you what it is, Maude, you’ll have to shake your husband out of no end of ridiculous habits.”

“It is growing dark,” exclaimed Maude, as she stepped into the corridor.

“Dark! of course it’s dark,” was the irascible answer; “and they have had to light up the chapel, or Priddon couldn’t have seen to read his book.  And all through those confounded fox-hunters!”

Lord Hartledon was not in the drawing-room, where Lady Kirton had left him only a minute before; and she looked round sharply.

“Has he gone on to the chapel?” she asked of the young clergyman.