Her primitive soul had scarcely dared to approach, even with awe, the thought of such a possibility for herself.  As in the past she had not had the temerity to dream of herself as a woman who possessed attractions likely to lead to marriage, so she was mentally restrained in these days.  There was something spinster-like in the tenor of her thoughts.  But she would have laid down her life for this dull man’s happiness.  And of late she had more than once blamed herself for accepting so much, unthinkingly.

“I did not realise things properly,” she had said to herself in humble pain.  “I ought to have been a girl, young and strong and beautiful.  His sacrifice was too great, it was immense.”

It had been nothing of the sort.  He had pleased himself and done what was likely to tend, and had tended, altogether to his own ease and comfort.  In any case Emily Fox-Seton was a fine creature, and only thirty-four, and with Alec Osborn at the other side of the globe the question of leaving an heir had been less present and consequently had dwindled in importance.

The nearness of the Osborns fretted him just now.  If their child was a son, he would be more fretted still.  He was rather glad of a possibility, just looming, of his being called away from England through affairs of importance.

He had spoken to Emily of this possibility, and she had understood that, as his movements and the length of his stay would be uncertain, she would not accompany him.

“There is one drawback to our marriage,” he said.

“Is it—­is it anything I can remove?” Emily asked.

“No, though you are responsible for it.  People seldom can remove the drawbacks they are responsible for.  You have taught me to miss you.”,

“Have I—­have I?” cried Emily.  “Oh!  I am happy!”

She was so happy that she felt that she must pass on some of her good fortune to those who had less.  She was beautifully kind to Hester Osborn.  Few days passed without the stopping of a Walderhurst carriage before the door of The Kennel Farm.  Sometimes Emily came herself to take Mrs. Osborn to drive, sometimes she sent for her to come to lunch and spend the day or night at Palstrey.  She felt an interest in the young woman which became an affection.  She would have felt interested in her if there had not existed a special reason to call forth sympathy.  Hester had many curious and new subjects for conversation.  Emily liked her descriptions of Indian life and her weird little stories of the natives.  She was charmed with Ameerah, whose nose rings and native dress, combining themselves with her dark mystic face, rare speech, and gliding, silent movements, awakened awe in the rustics and mingled distrust and respect in the servants’ hall at Palstrey.

“She’s most respectably behaved, my lady, though foreign and strange in her manners,” was Jane Cupp’s comment.  “But she has a way of looking at a person—­almost stealthy—­that’s upset me many a time when I’ve noticed it suddenly.  They say that she knows things, like fortune-telling and spells and love potions.  But she will only speak of them quite secret.”