'Would you like a companion for the first stage of your journey?' Felicia said; 'if so, Maud will ride with you, and the children and I will start later, and meet her on the way home.' This was, in fact, a kind device of Felicia's--one of the rash things which people do when they are completely perplexed, in a sort of wild hope that some good may come of it, rather than with any precise design. Felicia had come with distressing distinctness to recognise the full gravity of the position and to feel how dreadfully she had been to blame. She had done all that one woman can to lead another to fall in love, and she had succeeded only too well. Her little scheme of happiness for her two friends was marred by an impediment which she had altogether overlooked. Sutton's obduracy had never occurred to her as a serious impediment, yet now he seemed hopelessly unimpressible. Bitterly Felicia reproached herself for all her part in the transaction; but of what use was self-reproach? There was the terrible result, beyond the reach alike of penitence or redress. Maud's heart, Felicia knew instinctively, was lost--her very silence on the topic betrayed the consciousness of something to conceal. There was a sort of entreating air about her that seemed to cry for pity. More than once Felicia had taken her to her arms and embraced her tenderly--she could not have said why, but yet she knew. Maud, with her joyousness gone, and battling with a silent sorrow, seemed to her to have a touch of pathos which roused all the latent melancholy of Felicia's nature into activity. It was one of those sad things in life before which her fortitude completely failed. Ruefully did she vow, now that vowing was of no use, that her first attempt at match-making should be her last. At any rate she sent the two riders off together on this last ride, in the faint hope that something might occur to bring the tardy wooer to a right frame of mind. CHAPTER XXI. MAUD'S SECRET. ----In the glance, A moment's glance, of meeting eyes, His heart stood still in sudden trance-- He trembled with a sweet surprise; All in the waning light she stood, The star of perfect womanhood. That summer eve his heart was light, With lighter step he trod the ground, And life was fairer in his sight, And music was in every sound: He bless'd the world where there could be So beautiful a thing as she. The western horizon was all ablaze, and the sun's rays came slanting through the gloom of the Rhododendron Forest, as Sutton and his companion rode down the mountain-side towards the plains.