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the white-haired old man who had died in poverty and contempt, not even her husband knew. This love, with the weight of sorrow and pain that was part of it, had been reawakened to-day. There had been nothing in the manner of anyone else in the neighbourhood to remind her of that terrible time, but Fred Stanier seemed to have brought the very atmosphere of it with him, to have left it behind him. She was living through it again; trying again to find the truth. Could Anthony help her?-Would it be wise to ask him to help her? . . . . Perhaps it would be better to try once more to forget. It would be easier when the Staniers had left the neighbourhood. And she had enough of happiness to fill her life. It was fitting that

the roses should have one thorn.

Such were her thoughts during the few

moments that she stood by the window. Then she turned with a smile to Anthony; but to her surprise the smile was not returned. He only looked at her intently, surely not sternly? She was growing fanciful! What would she be fancying next, she wondered, laying her hand gently on his arm, looking up into his eyes with her own loving untroubled look.

Anthony's face suddenly grew clear as if no cloud had ever rested there for a second; and he put his arm round her, and drew her to him :

"Forgive me, little one," he said, "I've been thinking wrong things."

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CHAPTER VIII.

THE ENVIOUS LITTLE CLOUD.

Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them, as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot, can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible and agreeing with what he fancied."

DEAN SWIFT: Thoughts and Aphorisms.

THEY had walked on in silence for a little while; then Mrs. Stanier had demanded of her husband the meaning of his disquiet.

He made no answer, but his face, which had been pale, suddenly flushed with a flush of pain.

Charlotte was watching him keenly, and he knew something of her keenness now, perhaps dreaded it a little. It was quite

useless trying to hide anything from her that she set herself to find out. She hated hidden things. Honesty was her virtue of virtues; openness her first impulse, let the event be what it might.

It was not always a pleasant openness. She was as ready to utter a disagreeable truth as an agreeable one; and of this also it may be that her husband had a little dread. The colour that had risen to his face with her question died out as rapidly as it had come; but the pain remained and the burden,—for burden there was.

Perhaps had he known his wife better, he would have dreaded her less, and perhaps have trusted her more than he had yet learnt to do. In spite of her glitter and loudness and hardness she was a true woman, womanly enough to have married for love this man

who was so much weaker than herself; womanly enough to pity him when his weakness was of a nature to admit of pity. She was bewildered a little at present; and bewilderment was not congenial to her.

They had reached the bridge that spans the river near the station at Stonebrig. Tall trees, elm and ash, oak and sycamore, were swaying and rustling on the right, arching over the river beyond where the water was surging and foaming over the stonework of a ruined mill.

The sun poured down the valley, there was a haze of purple hills beyond; a middistance of cornfield and pasture-land; on the left a few hawthorn and apple-trees, a bank of spreading coltsfoot, and an angler knee-deep in bracken.

They stood awhile in the middle of the

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