Egerton, watching the hot color come and go in the governess’ face, wondered he had never seen how beautiful she was. She would be a dangerous rival for that half-fledged girl down-stairs. He hoped there were not going to be any troublesome complications. “You are not coming down to-day, you said!” he suggested. “Perhaps you are right, and it would be well to rest.” She was ready to say she would go down now, this instant, when she remembered he was her master; that governesses did not always come to the table with guests. “Perhaps it would,” she answered, and the coldness of her voice pleased him. “I have not mentioned you, at least your name,” he had the grace not to look at her, even though he had no idea she and Erle had ever met; “I thought, perhaps, you would prefer not to meet strangers.” “No,” and by good luck he did not see her face, “not strangers, though there is no earthly reason you should not mention my name,” for Holbeach would mean nothing to Raimond. “I will go down when you send for me.” As the door closed behind him she caught at the table to hold herself up. Her eyes were narrowed to slits, and her nostrils pinched as she breathed. From the scented shade of the oleanders below her there floated up a man’s laugh, low and sweet. Agony racked her as even she had not known it could without killing her. “Strangers,” she said in a dreadful whisper, “he and I!” Her face convulsed out of all beauty, she ran to the window and looked out behind the jalousy. In the garden, tall, handsome in a haggard, hard-bitten way--and oh, God, beloved!--lounged the man who had been her husband for five years. It took all her will to crush back the cry on her lips. She knew from his face it was not for her he had come back. He had forgotten. “Then why is he here?” she asked herself. But she dared not answer her own soul. CHAPTER XXII. BEHIND THE CYPRESS BOUGHS. “Andria!” a soft tap came at her locked door. “Let me in. Why haven’t you been down all day?” “I was busy,” Andria answered, shutting the door behind Beryl. She had been busy, indeed, and if Egerton had seen her now he would have had no fears that her beauty might be a snare to any man’s feet. The pale mauve gown had vanished with all the others that littered her bedroom; in the plainest black gown she owned, Andria stood, tall and pale, her eyes sunken, her mouth drawn; it was as if she had aged ten years. Beryl sat down on the table, a bright rose spot burning in each cheek. “I wish you’d come down. I don’t like it without you,” she said restlessly. “Isn’t your throat well enough?” “I don’t know. I’d forgotten it. Why do you want me? Don’t you like--him?” for her life she could not say the name. “Who? Mr. Egerton. I’ve always loathed him,” Beryl said angrily, “and I always shall. If it were not for being with you, I’d rather he’d left me in the workhouse!” “No”--hesitating--“the other?”