But John Temple only sadly shook his head. It remained his fixed idea that May was dead, as he believed she had loved him too well to live apart from him. But he felt grateful to Mrs. Temple for her kindness and consideration for his feelings; grateful perhaps that she had spared him telling May's father all the bitter truth. And Mrs. Temple told the same story to her mother. Mrs. Layton, we may be sure, was not long in arriving at the Hall, but her daughter would not allow her to see John Temple. "You worry him, and he and his wife have quarreled about some old love of his or other, and she has actually left him," she said. "Left him!" cried Mrs. Layton, triumphantly. "I knew no good would come of it; no good ever does come of unequal marriages. But I don't believe she has left him; I believe he has left her." Mrs. Temple shrugged her shoulders. "At all events they have parted," she said; "and naturally he does not wish to be asked any questions on the subject, so while he is here please do not come." Mrs. Layton drew her meager little form up to its full height. "Rachel, is it possible," she said, "that you forbid your mother to the house?" "It is John Temple's house now, not mine, and he does not wish to be worried; so please stay away," replied Mrs. Temple, coolly; and Mrs. Layton departed, feeling that "a judgment" was sure to descend on her daughter's head. Mrs. Temple told John Temple of this quarrel, and laughed a little scornfully at the recollection of it. "My mother is a woman," she said, "on whom all delicacy of feeling is wasted, for she has none;" and John Temple certainly agreed with her. But on the third day after his arrival at Woodlea something occurred which worried and disturbed him more than twenty visits from Mrs. Layton. It was a fine spring day and Mrs. Temple had gone out for a drive, but John Temple had refused to accompany her. However, about four o'clock, tempted by the sunshine, he lit a cigar and strolled out into the park. He walked on moodily enough with bent head, when his attention was attracted by the sound of carriage wheels approaching down the avenue. He supposed it would be Mrs. Temple returning from her drive, and so he walked on. But when the carriage drew nearer and he was about to meet it, he saw it was not one of the Hall carriages, but evidently a hired one. He therefore turned hastily into a side path, for he was in no mood to encounter strangers. Then he heard the carriage stop, and a few moments later, when he again looked around, he perceived a lady on the side path, who was evidently following him. He stopped, and for an instant the thought, the wild hope, crossed his brain, could it be May? But no; the lady who was approaching him, though closely veiled, was taller than the slender girlish form of his lost love. She advanced quickly, and in another minute they met; and John Temple started back as they did so.