No, indeed: she had made Laurence Desmond a part of herself, the very first principle of her existence; and to resign her hold upon him was to make an end of the sole aim and object of her life. For him she had lived, and for none other. The two commandments of the Gospel were to her much less than this man. Her love for her God began and ended with a tolerably punctual attendance at the parish church, and a half-mechanical utterance of the responses to the orthodox family prayers which Mrs. Colton read every morning and evening to the little household of River Lawn. Her love for her neighbour was summed-up in a careless compliance with any parochial demand on her purse. All the rest was Laurence Desmond. And now conscience told her she must give him up. She sat thinking, with tearless eyes and a pale, still face, until the subject of her thoughts came to the open window, and told her that the boat was ready. CHAPTER VII. A SUMMER STORM. MRS. COLTON entered the drawing-room by the door as Laurence Desmond came in by the window. “I have given you the sparkling Rüdesheimer instead of champagne, Mr. Desmond,” she said, cheerily: “Donner has put it in a basket of rough ice; and Vokes has brought me in the finest peaches I have seen this year, Emily. He is quite proud of them.” After this came Lucy, pale and grave, but looking the picture of innocence and prettiness, in her white dress, and little sailor hat with ribbon of Oxford blue. “Not dressed, Emily!” exclaimed Laurence, as he shook hands with Mrs. Jerningham. The exclamation was purely mechanical. His mind must indeed have been pre-occupied, or he would have noticed the icy coldness of the hand that lay so listlessly in his own. “I have only my hat to put on. Wilson has seen to the shawls and cloaks, no doubt. I am quite ready.” Mrs. Jerningham took her hat from the sofa, where she had thrown it an hour before; a very archetype of hats, bordered with the lustrous plumage of a peacock’s breast. Of these glories she had tasted to satiety; all the bliss that millinery can give to the heart of woman had been hers. But there comes a time when even these things seem vanity. To-day the peacock’s plumage might have been dust and ashes, for any pleasure it afforded her. They went out to the boat. The day was warm to oppressiveness, and Mrs. Jerningham’s attire of the thinnest. “I hope you have plenty of wraps,” said Laurence; “there’s rather an ugly cloud to windward.” “Oh yes; Wilson always gives us an infinity of that kind of thing,” Mrs. Jerningham answered, glancing at the bottom of the boat, where lay a heap of shawls and cloaks of the burnous order, just a little less gauzy in texture than the dresses of the two ladies. “I really am almost afraid of the day,” muttered Lawrence, looking to the south-west, where a stormy darkness brooded over the landscape.