under the old mulberry tree--your first long skirt--and you saw that I
was no good, and you were perfectly right, but, after all, what is your
life to be now?"

Rose got up from the stool and rested one hand on the marble
mantelpiece. She needed some help, some physical support.

"Edmund," she said, "I don't think I dwell much on the future; I leave
all in God's hands. I have been through a good deal now, you must not
expect too much of me." She paused. "But what you have said to me about
yourself is nonsense; I wish you would not talk like that. You are only
forty. You are very clever, very rich, you have the right sort of
ambition although you won't say so, and you are, oh! so kind. Couldn't
you do something, have some real interest?" He growled inarticulately.
"Is it of no use to ask you just to think it over?"

"None whatever," he said firmly and cheerfully.

The gong sounded in the hall for luncheon.




BOOK II




CHAPTER XIV