in stern fixity, not at her from whom he had been parted in the early summer of his manhood, nor at his successful rival, nor yet at the guardian who had offered him gratuitous insult in addition to the injury of refusing to permit his ward’s marriage with a disgraced adventurer—­but at Mrs. Aylett, the chatelaine of Ridgeley, the wife whose serene purity had never been blemished by a doubting breath; chaste and polished matron; the admired copy for younger and less discreet, but not more beautiful women.  He surveyed her boldly—­if the imagination had not seemed preposterous—­Mr. Aylett would have said scornfully, as he might study the face and figure of some abandoned wretch who had accosted him in the public thoroughfare as an acquaintance.

A haughty and uncontrollable gesture from the husband succeeded in diverting the offender’s notice to himself for one instant—­not more.  But in that flash he detected a shade of difference in the expression that irked him; a ray, that was inquiry, sharp and eager, tempered by compassion, yet still contemptuous.

All this passed in less time than it has taken me to write a line descriptive of the pantomime.  The mound was shaped, and the decorously mournful train turned from it to retrace their course to the house, Frederic Chilton imitating the example of those about him, but moving like a sleep-walker, his brows corrugated and eyes sightless to all surrounding objects.  He had awakened when the Ridgeley carriage drove to the door.  Mrs. Sutton detained Mabel in one of the upper chambers to concert plans for a visit to the homestead while the Dorrances should be there.  Aunt and niece had not met since the arrival of the latter in Virginia, a fortnight before, the elder lady being in constant attendance upon Mrs. Tazewell.

“This is very stupid!  And I am getting hungry!” said Mrs. Aylett, aside to her lord, as she stood near a front window, tapping the floor with her feet, while vehicle after vehicle received its load and rolled off.  “We shall be the last on the ground.  Herbert! can’t you intimate to Mabel that we are impatient to be gone?”

“I don’t know where she is!” growled the brother, for once non-complaisant to her behest, and not stirring from the chair in the corner into which he had dropped at his entrance.

His head hung upon his breast, and he appeared to study the lining of his hat-crown, balancing the brim by his forefingers between his knees.  Mrs. Aylett had lowered her veil in the burying-ground or on her way thither, but it was a flimsy mass of black lace—­richly wrought, yet insufficient to hide the paleness of the upper part of her visage.  Mr. Aylett watched and wondered, with but one definite idea in his brain beyond the resolve to ferret out the entire mystery in his stealthy, taciturn fashion.  Herbert Dorrance had been, in some manner, compromised by his association with this Chilton, had reason to dread exposure from him, and his sister was the confidante of his guilty secret.