His sarcasm made her for the first time lose a little of her self-control. Her black eyes positively glared as she went a step or two nearer him. "The day you warned Harry Curzon against marrying me," she replied. "Do you remember? You are good at that sort of dirty work; insolent meddling is rather a _speciality_ of yours. Still, I think you cannot have forgotten this particular case." Rex grew visibly paler. Yes, he remembered. But without waiting for his reply, Mabella turned and fled swiftly up the avenue to the house. And she left The Fells the next day. It had been several years ago--five or six. Harry Curzon was a subaltern in his own regiment--handsome, attractive, weak, and easily influenced; and Rex _had_ warned him against the, even then, fast and noisy and unscrupulous girl. He had thought it his duty, and he thought it might save Harry. It had not done so. The young man had gone from bad to worse, and the watching his downward career had been one of the saddest pages in Rex Winchester's life. But as he glanced up the darkening road after Mabella's retreating figure, a strange pity thrilled him. "They say no one is _all_ bad," he thought to himself. "I suppose it is possible she really loved that poor, foolish fellow." CHAPTER THIRTEEN. EVA. Late autumn again. A year, a year fully since Imogen and her mother left The Fells that bright, chilly November morning. Since then their life had been a wandering and unsettled one. Mrs Wentworth's dreams of a modest season in London had not been realised, for Imogen had shrunk from anything and everything of the kind. So, having disposed of their house at Eastbourne, they had travelled about aimlessly enough, the one guiding influence the girl's fancy for the time being. For Mrs Wentworth had entirely, as the French say, "effaced herself" for her child. And in this there was a strong element of not altogether undeserved self-reproach, as well as of adoring maternal devotion. Of course it had not been wisely done, but she was not a "wise" person. And the very unwisdom of her devotion should have touched a nature essentially generous as was Imogen's. It did so from time to time, but not lastingly; only adding, therefore, to the poor girl's restlessness and irritability, new and perplexing developments in her character.