Malcolm had been nearly twenty-four hours at the Wood House, and she had hardly exchanged a dozen words with him, and already he had signified his intention of returning to town the next morning, in spite of Cedric's vehement protestations. He had arrived so late the previous evening that he had had only time for a hasty greeting before he went to his room to prepare for dinner. During the evening the young couple had naturally engrossed his attention. A harder-hearted man than Malcolm would have been touched by Anna's innocent happiness and her shy pride in her handsome young lover. "Does she not look lovely!" Elizabeth had said to him in a low voice as they were all gathered on the terrace after dinner. And indeed the girl looked very fair and sweet in her white silk dress, with a row of pearls clasped round her soft throat. "You are right; and yet I never thought Anna really pretty," he returned in a cool, critical tone. "Happiness is generally a beautifier, and my little girl certainly looks her best to-night." And then he went after them; and Elizabeth saw that Anna was hanging on his arm as they went down the steps and that Cedric's hand was on his shoulder. "How happy they are!" she thought a little enviously; "they are both devoted to him, and he certainly returns their affection. He is good and kind to every one but me," she continued resentfully: "if Dinah had said that, he would not have answered her so curtly and then turned on his heel and left her." Here Elizabeth wilfully ignored the fact that Cedric had signalled to him somewhat impatiently. "I believe that he has made a vow not to speak to me if he can help it." Elizabeth was in a restless, irritable frame of mind that prevented her from taking a reasonable view of things. If she had been less alive to her own embarrassment and discomfort, she would have discovered for herself that Malcolm was ill at ease too. If he had not talked much to her, he had watched her closely, and it had troubled and pained him to see how thin and worn she looked; in the strong light he had even noticed a faint tinge of gray in her bright brown hair. "She is pitiless to herself as well as to me," he said to himself bitterly; "if she goes on like this, she will be an old woman before her time. Her life is too limited: it suits Dinah, but it does not suit Elizabeth. Why should she spend her lime teaching village children and fagging after that old man"--for Malcolm was growing hopeless and embittered.