"I never have told, and I never will," Cassandra said firmly, "but it had a real lace veil." She sighed with melancholy resignation. "Somehow, Grizel, even hats lose their savour, when there's no one to care..." "Rubbish!" cried Grizel tersely, "and you know it. A woman buys hats to please herself. Half the time her husband calls them `The Limit'! and her friends wonder how she _can_, but so long as she and the mirror are agreed, it doesn't make a rap of difference. She wears it to the end... Cassandra, darling, I feel it in my bones that I'm going to find the hat of my life! Oughtn't we to be dreadfully thankful that we go in for different styles? All would be over between us, if we fell in love with the same model!" CHAPTER THIRTY THREE. "IT'S JUST--LIFE!" Grizel came slowly down the long, straight path leading from the convent to the orchard wall, which marked the boundary of the grounds. It was a high wall rising some eight or ten feet above the path, and serving as a support for fruit trees, but at the farther end a sloping gangway of grass led to a terraced walk from which a view could be obtained over the low-lying country stretching towards the sea. On the terrace stood Cassandra, her white figure strongly outlined against the blue of the skies. She turned at her friend's approach, and beheld that in Grizel's eyes which startled her into attention. "You have something to tell me?" "Yes!" "What is it, Grizel?" "It is a confession. I have told you a lie... I told it deliberately, for your own good." "What did you tell me?" "I said that the wedding day was to be on the twenty-fifth. That would be next Wednesday." "Yes?" "That was the lie! I told you the wrong date. They were married on the tenth,--twelve days ago. It is all over. The meeting is over, the ceremony is over, the honeymoon is nearly over too. They will soon be thinking of going home." Cassandra looked at her, and the blood rushed over her face. A tremor passed over it, of shock, of anguish, of incredulous surprise. Her lips quivered, and the fingers of her hands interlaced till the muscles showed white beneath skin. She asked no more questions, and Grizel stood by her side, watching in silence for the first sight of that which was to be her reward. She waited many minutes, but it came at last, shining forth more and more strongly as the shock and the pain lost their keenness,--a look of relief! Cassandra's shoulders heaved, she drew a long, fluttering breath, and her eyes grew moist with tears. "Oh, thank God. _Over_! I have been dreading, how I have been dreading... Grizel, Grizel, if you only knew--" "I _did_ know! Every minute of the day you would have been with them,-- following them, seeing, imagining, _hearing_, torturing yourself, squandering your strength! My dear, I am a woman too! I did know. So I lied, and the day passed by in peace, here with the dear nuns, and you knew nothing--nothing!"