“It will be best for everyone concerned,”—­she said, with a sigh—­ “Of course it upsets all my plans and spoils my whole summer,—­but it is the only thing to do—­the wisest and safest, both for—­for Mr. Walden—­and for me.  I should be a very poor friend if I could not sacrifice myself and my own pleasure to save him from possible annoyance,—­and though it is a little hard—­yes!—­it is hard!—­it can’t be helped, and I must go through with it.  ’Home, Home, sweet Home!’ Yes—­dear old Home!—­you shall not be darkened by a shadow of deceit or treachery if I can prevent it!—­and for the present, my way is the only way!”

One or two tears glittered on her long lashes when she at last fell into a light slumber, and the old pendulum’s rusty voice croaking out:  ‘Give all—­take no—­thing’ echoed hoarsely through her dreams like a harsh command which it was more or less difficult to obey.  But life, as we all know, is not made up of great events so much as of irritating trifles,—­poor, wretched, apparently insignificant trifles, which, nevertheless do so act upon our destinies sometimes as to put everything out of gear, and make havoc and confusion where there should be nothing but peace.  It was the merest trifle that Sir Morton Pippitt should have brought his ‘distinguished guests,’ including Marius Longford, to see John Walden’s church—­and also have taken him to visit Maryllia in her own home;—­it was equally trifling that Longford, improving on the knightly Bone-Melter’s acquaintance, should have chosen to import Lord Roxmouth into the neighbourhood through the convenient precincts of Badsworth Hall;—­ it was a trifle that Maryllia should have actually believed in the good faith of two women who had formerly entertained her at their own houses and whose hospitality she was anxious to return;—­and it was a trifle that John Walden should, so to speak, have made a conventionally social ‘slip’ in his protest against smoking women;—­ but there the trifles stopped.  Maryllia knew well enough that only the very strongest feeling, the very deepest and most intense emotion could have made the quiet, self-contained ‘man o’ God’ as Mrs. Spruce called him, speak to her as he had done,—­and she also knew that only the most bitter malice and cruel under-intent to do mischief could have roused Roxmouth, usually so coldly self-centred, to the white heat of wrath which had blazed out of him that evening.  Between these two men she stood—­a quite worthless object of regard, so she assured herself,—­through her, one of them was like to have his name torn to shreds in the foul mouths of up-to-date salacious slanderers,—­and likewise through her, the other was prepared and ready to commit himself to any kind of lie, any sort of treachery, in order to gain his own interested ends.  Small wonder that tears rose to her eyes even in sleep—­and that in an uneasy and confused dream she saw John Walden standing in his garden near the lilac-tree from which he had once given her a spray,—­and