Lord and Lady Hartledon were entertaining a family group.  The everlasting dowager kept to them unpleasantly; making things unbearable, and wearing out her welcome in no slight degree, if she had only been wise enough to see it.  She had escaped scarlet-fever and other dreaded ills; and was alive still.  For that matter, the little Lord Elster had come out of it also:  not unscathed; for the boy remained a sickly wreck, and there was very little hope that he would really recover.  The final close might be delayed, but it was not to be averted.  Before Easter they had left London for Hartledon, that he might have country air.  Lord Hartledon’s eldest sister, Lady Margaret Cooper, came there with her husband; and on this day the other sister, Lady Laura Level, had arrived from India.  Lady Margaret was an invalid, and not an agreeable woman besides; but to Laura and Anne the meeting, after so many years’ separation, was one of intense pleasure.  They had been close friends from childhood.

They were all gathered together in the large drawing-room after luncheon.  The day was a wet one, and no one had ventured out except Sir James Cooper.  Accustomed to the Scotch mists, this rain seemed a genial shower, and Sir James was enjoying it accordingly.  It was a warm, close day, in spite of the rain; and the large fire in the grate made the room oppressive, so that they were glad to throw the windows open.

Lying on a sofa near the fire was the invalid boy.  By merely looking at him you might see that he would never rally, though he fluctuated much.  To-day he was, comparatively speaking, well.  Little Maude was threading beads; and the two others, much younger, stood looking on—­Reginald and Anne.  Lady Margaret Cooper, having a fellow-feeling for an invalid, sat near the sick boy.  Lord Hartledon sat apart at a table reading, and making occasional notes.  The dowager, more cumbersome than ever, dozed on the other side of the hearth.  She was falling into the habit of taking a nap after luncheon as well as after dinner.  Lady Laura was in danger of convulsions every time she looked at the dowager.  Never in all her life had she seen so queer an old figure.  She and Anne stood together at an open window, the one eagerly asking questions, the other answering, all in undertones.  Lady Laura had been away from her own home and kindred some twelve years, and it seemed to her half a lifetime.

“Anne, how was it?” she exclaimed.  “It was a thing that always puzzled me, and I never came to the bottom of it.  My husband said at the time I used to talk of it in my sleep.”

“What do you mean?”

“About you and Val.  You were engaged to each other; you loved him, and he loved you.  How came that other marriage about?”

“Well, I can hardly tell you.  I was at Cannes with mamma, and he fell into the meshes.  We knew nothing about it until they were married.  Never mind all that now; I don’t care to recall it, and it is a very sore point with Val.  The blame, I believe, lay chiefly with her.”