"Let us come for a walk; we can slip out through this window," murmured
Sir Edmund, as he took her empty tea-cup from his cousin.

Rose began to move, but Lady Groombridge claimed her attention before
she could escape.

"Do you know Mrs. Delaport Green and Miss Dexter?"

Rose, as she heard Molly's name, found herself looking quite directly
into very unexpected and very remarkable grey eyes with dark lashes. Her
gentle but reserved greeting would have been particularly negative
after Edmund's warning as to both ladies, but she did not quite control
a look of surprise and interest. There was a great light in Molly's face
as she saw the young and beautiful woman whom she had dreaded intensely
to meet.

Rose was evidently unconscious of a certain gentle pride of bearing, but
was fully conscious of a wish to be kindly and loving. In neither of
these aspects--and they were revealed in a glance to Molly--did Rose
attract her. But Molly's look, which puzzled Rose, was as a flame of
feeling, burning visibly through the features of the dark, healthy face,
and finding its full expression in the eyes. The glory of the landscape
she had just passed through, and the excitement of finding herself in
such a building, added fuel to Molly's feelings, and seemed to give a
historic background to her meeting with her enemy. Some subtle and
curious sympathy lit Rose's face for a moment, and then she shrank a
little as if she recoiled from a slight shock, and turning with a smile
to Sir Edmund Grosse, she followed him down the great hall and out into
a passage beyond. He had given Molly an intimate but rather careless nod