"Mr. Lanley."

Wayne stood up.

"I suppose I must go," he said.

"No, no," she returned a little wildly, and added, as if this were
the reason why she opposed his departure. "This is my grandfather. You
must see him."

Wayne sat down again, in the chair on the other side of the tea-table.




CHAPTER II


Mathilde had been wrong in telling Wayne that her mother had gone
upstairs in obedience to an impulse of kindness. She had gone to quiet a
small, gnawing anxiety that had been with her all the day, a haunting,
elusive, persistent impression that something was wrong between her and
her husband.

All the day, as she had gone about from one thing to another, her mind
had been diligently seeking in some event of the outside world an
explanation of a slight obscuration of his spirit; but her heart, more
egotistical, had stoutly insisted that the cause must lie in her. Did he
love her less? Was she losing her charm for him? Were five years the
limit of a human relation like theirs? Was she to watch the dying down of