dwarf-pines on the road-side scowled weakly at her through the
gray; the very silver minnows in the pools she passed, flashed
frightened away, and darkened into the muddy niches. There was a
vague dread in the sudden silence. She called to the old donkey,
and went faster down the hill, as if escaping from some
overhanging peril, unseen. She saw Margret coming up the road.
There was a phaeton behind Lois, and some horsemen: she jolted
the cart off into the stones to let them pass, seeing Mr.
Holmes's face in the carriage as she did so. He did not look at
her; had his head turned towards the gray distance. Lois's vivid
eye caught the full meaning of the woman beside him. The face
hurt her: not fair, as Polston called it: vapid and cruel. She
was dressed in yellow: the colour seemed jeering and mocking to
the girl's sensitive instinct, keenly alive to every trifle. She
did not know that it is the colour of shams, and that women like
this are the most deadly of shams. As the phaeton went slowly
down, Margret came nearer, meeting it on the road-side, the dust
from the wheels stifling the air. Lois saw her look up, and then
suddenly stand still, holding to the fence, as they met her.
Holmes's cold, wandering eye turned on the little dusty figure
standing there, poor and despised. Polston called his eyes
hungry: it was a savage hunger that sprang into them now; a gray
shadow creeping over his set face, as he looked at her, in that
flashing moment. The phaeton was gone in an instant, leaving her
alone in the road. One of the men looked back, and then
whispered something to the lady with a laugh. She turned to
Holmes, when he had finished, fixing her light, confusing eyes on
his face, and softening her voice.

"Fred swears that woman we passed was your first love. Were you,