The motor overtook Miss Morven as she reached the Rectory gate; here she stood for a moment in the shadow of the beech trees, and as the car and its occupants swung into the full light of the last lamp (oil) in Ottinge, she had a view of the back of the woman’s head--a woman talking eagerly to her companion, who faced her in an easy attitude, cigar in hand. The man was her aunts’ chauffeur. As the car glided by, he laughed an involuntary, appreciative, and familiar laugh that spoke of years of intimacy--a laugh that pierced the heart of its unseen listener with the force and agony of a two-edged sword. For a moment the girl felt stunned; then she began to experience the shock of wounded pride, of insulted love, of intolerable humiliation. So the dark-haired lady was “the Obstacle!” That impassioned declaration on Yampton Hill had been--what? Mr. Wynyard was merely experimenting on her credulity; he wished to discover how far he might go, how much she would believe? A gay Hussar, who had got into such trouble that he was compelled to hide his whereabouts and name, until he could return to the world after a decent interval of obscurity and repentance! Meanwhile, he played the mysterious adorer, and amused himself with “a country heart,” _pour passer le temps_. And yet--and yet--when she recalled his steadfast eyes, the tremulous ardour of his bearing in the garden, and, on the hillside, he had looked in desperate earnest. “Yes,” jeered another voice, “and in deadly earnest in the Drum window!” And she? She had actually believed that he was hopelessly in love; and she, who had been ready to stand by him against all her kindred, who had blushed and trembled before his eyes and voice, had kissed her own glove where his lips had pressed it! As these memories raced through her brain an awful sensation of sinking down into the solid earth possessed her. Aurea groped blindly for the gate and rested her head upon it. It seemed to her as if, under the shade of those beeches, a something not of this world, some terrible and relentless force, had fought and wrested from her, her unacknowledged hopes, and her happy youth. Half an hour later she toiled up the drive with dragging, unsteady steps. Prayers were over when she entered the library--a white ghost of herself, and, with a mumbled apology, she went over and bade her father good-night, and touched his cheek with lips that were dry and feverish. He, simple, blind man, absorbed in proofs, barely lifted his head, and said-- “Good-night, my child, sleep well!” And his child, evading Norris with a gesture of dismissal, hurried to the seclusion of her own apartment, and locked the door. Three days later, Miss Morven left home somewhat unexpectedly; but it was conceded even by her Aunt Bella that the shock of Captain Ramsay’s death had upset the girl. She wanted a change, and a lively place and lively society would divert her mind.