Lady Dacre moved off with Stephen.  They went out of the house and down the walk.  She commented on the neglected appearance of things until Stephen asked her if weeds were peculiar to the American soil.  In answer she struck him lightly with her fan and walked on laughing.  But when they reached the end of the garden, she turned upon him suddenly.

“Now tell me,” she said.

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me what, indeed!  What a speech for a lover, a young husband.  Has the light of your honeymoon faded so quickly?  Mine has not yet.  Tell me about her, of course, your charming bride.”

Stephen came to a dead halt, and stood looking into the smiling eyes gazing up into his.

“Lady Dacre,” he said, “the Mistress Archdale you will find at Seascape is my mother.”  Then he gave the history of his intended marriage, and of that other marriage which might prove real.  His listener was more moved than she liked to show.

“It will all be right,” she said tearfully.  “But it is dreadful for you, and for the young ladies, both of them.”

“Yes,” he answered, “for both of them.”

“You know,” she began eagerly, “that I am the——?” then she stopped.

Stephen waited courteously for the end of the sentence that was never to be finished.  He felt no curiosity at her sudden breaking off; it seemed to him that curiosity and interest, except on one subject, were over for him forever.

When Lady Dacre repeated this story to her husband she finished by saying:  “Why do you suppose it is, Temple, that my heart goes out to the married one?”

“Natural perversity, my dear.”

“Then you think she is married?”

“Don’t know; it is very probable.”

“Poor Archdale!”

Sir Temple burst into a laugh.  “Is he poor, Archdale, because you think he has made the best bargain?”

“No, you heartless man, but because he does not see it.  Besides, I cannot even tell if it is so.  I believe I pity everybody.”

“That’s a good way,” responded her husband.  “Then you will be sure to hit right somewhere.”

“I will remember that,” returned Lady Dacre between vexation and laughing, “and lay it up against you, too.  But, poor fellow, he is so in love with his pretty cousin, and she with him.”

“Poor cousin!  Is she like a certain lady I know who chose to be married in a dowdy dress and a poke bonnet for fear of losing her husband altogether?”

But Lady Dacre did not hear a word.  She was listening to a mouse behind the wainscotting, and spying out a nail-hole which she was sure was big enough for it to come out of, and she insisted that her husband should ring and have the place stopped up.