A bribe and a message relieved the Countess of Dorothy’s attendance on her.

What did this mean?  Were people so base as to be guilty of hideous plots in this house?  Her mother coming!  The Countess’s blood turned deadly chill.  Had it been her father she would not have feared, but her mother was so vilely plain of speech; she never opened her mouth save to deliver facts:  which was to the Countess the sign of atrocious vulgarity.

But her mother had written to say she would wait for Evan in Fallow field!  The Countess grasped at straws.  Did Dorothy hear that?  And if Harry and Juliana spoke of her mother, what did that mean?  That she was hunted, and must stand at bay!

‘Oh, Papa!  Papa! why did you marry a Dawley?’ she exclaimed, plunging to what was, in her idea, the root of the evil.

She had no time for outcries and lamentations.  It dawned on her that this was to be a day of battle.  Where was Harry?  Still in the midst of the Conley throng, apparently pooh-poohing something, to judge by the twist of his mouth.

The Countess delicately signed for him to approach her.  The extreme delicacy of the signal was at least an excuse for Harry to perceive nothing.  It was renewed, and Harry burst into a fit of laughter at some fun of one of the Conley girls.  The Countess passed on, and met Juliana pacing by herself near the lower gates of the park.  She wished only to see how Juliana behaved.  The girl looked perfectly trustful, as much so as when the Countess was pouring in her ears the tales of Evan’s growing but bashful affection for her.

‘He will soon be here,’ whispered the Countess.  ’Has he told you he will come by this entrance?’

‘No,’ replied Juliana.

‘You do not look well, sweet child.’

‘I was thinking that you did not, Countess?’

’Oh, indeed, yes!  With reason, alas!  All our visitors have by this time arrived, I presume?’

‘They come all day.’

The Countess hastened away from one who, when roused, could be almost as clever as herself, and again stood in meditation near the joyful Harry.  This time she did not signal so discreetly.  Harry could not but see it, and the Conley girls accused him of cruelty to the beautiful dame, which novel idea stung Harry with delight, and he held out to indulge in it a little longer.  His back was half turned, and as he talked noisily, he could not observe the serene and resolute march of the Countess toward him.  The youth gaped when he found his arm taken prisoner by the insertion of a small deliciously-gloved and perfumed hand through it.  ’I must claim you for a few moments,’ said the Countess, and took the startled Conley girls one and all in her beautiful smile of excuse.

‘Why do you compromise me thus, sir?’

These astounding words were spoken out of the hearing of the Conley girls.

‘Compromise you!’ muttered Harry.