When Kingcote took his leave the ladies separated. Mrs. Clarendon had before her a dinner party at Dunsey Priors, and it was necessary to give certain orders. Mrs. Stratton took up _The Times_ till tea should appear. Ada, after pacing about the library for a quarter of an hour, took her hat and went into the open air. Her mind was disturbed in some way; the darkness of trouble was back again in her eyes. She walked among the evergreens of the shrubbery, then strayed to a seat which stood against the wall of the circular portion of the conservatory. The landscape before her was wild with the hues of a sky in which the declining sun fought against flying strips of ragged cloud. The wind was kept off from this part of the lawn, but in the distance it made a moaning over the fields. She watched a cohort of dead leaves sweeping in great curves along the side of the house. A voice spoke very near to her. It came from within the rotunda; the stained-glass window just above her head was partly open. “It would be infinitely better,” Mrs. Clarendon was saying, “than that a man like Vincent Lacour should make a prize of her.” “But she cannot be so infatuated,” returned Mrs. Stratton. “She has sense enough to understand her own position and to take care of herself. My idea is that she won’t marry for some time, perhaps not at all.” There was silence, then the last speaker resumed. “She certainly has no interest in Mr. Kingcote.” “You can’t judge so speedily. I don’t say that I desire it,” Isabel added with an uncertain voice. “But I am sure it would be a happy thing.” “Then why not desire it?” “I don’t know, I can’t quite explain. And I half think she __has an interest in him; but then--poor Ada!” “She isn’t so ugly as she was,” remarked Mrs. Stratton’s matter-of-fact voice. “I notice that distinctly.” Ada rose and walked away with quick steps. At the corner of the house, as she passed it to reach the front door, a great gust of wind met her, and a troop of dry crackling leaves swarmed about her feet and dress; she bent her head and hastened on, not staying till she had reached her bedroom. There she stood, just within the door, motionless and purposeless. Her face was pale, her lips set at their hardest and cruelest. When at length she stirred, it was to go to the glass and view herself. She turned away with a laugh, no pleasant one.... As Isabel came downstairs a few minutes before the time for which the carriage had been ordered, she saw Ada standing in the doorway of the library. “Don’t, of course, sit up for me, Ada,” she said. “I will not. But I should be glad to speak to you now, if you could spare me a moment.” Isabel gazed, surprised at her tone.