Also, hidden away in the deepest recess of her heart, was an unacknowledged pain. She had felt so sure that Oliver Tropenell would stay on with his mother through the winter and early spring! But, to her bewildered surprise, he had left for Mexico almost at once. He had not even sought a farewell interview to say good-bye to her alone, and their final good-bye had taken place in the presence of his mother. Together he and Mrs. Tropenell had walked over to The Chase one late afternoon, within less than a week of Godfrey's funeral, and he had explained that urgent business was recalling him to Mexico at once. He and Laura had had, however, three or four minutes together practically alone; and at once he had exclaimed, in a voice so charged with emotion that it recalled those moments Laura now shrank from remembering--those moments when he had told her of his then lawless love--"You'll let me know if ever you want me? A cable would bring me as quickly as I can travel. You must not forget that I am your trustee." And she had replied, making a great effort to speak naturally: "I will write to you, Oliver, often--and I hope you will write to me." And he had said: "Yes--yes, of course I will! Not that there's much to say that will interest you. But I can always give you news of Gillie." He had said nothing as to when they were to meet again. But after he was gone Mrs. Tropenell had spoken as if he intended to come back the following Christmas. Oliver had so far kept his promise that he had written to Laura about once a fortnight. They were very ordinary, commonplace letters--not long, intimate, and detailed as she knew his letters to his mother to be. Mostly he wrote of Gillie, and of whatever work Gillie at the moment was engaged upon. On her side, she would write to him of little Alice, of the child's progress with her lessons, of the funny little things that Alice said. Occasionally she would also force herself to put in something about Godfrey, generally on some matter connected with the estate, and she would tell him of what she was doing in the garden, or in the house which had been built by his, Oliver's, forbears. She could not tell him, what was yet oddly true, that the spirit of Godfrey still ruled The Chase. He had inherited from his parents certain old-fashioned ways and usages, to which he had clung with a sort of determined obstinacy, and as to such matters, his wife, in the days which were now beginning to seem so far away and so unreal, had never even dreamt of gainsaying him. One of these usages was the leaving off of fires, however cold the weather might be, on the first of May, and this year, on the eve of May Day, Laura remembered, and made up her mind that in this, as in so much else, she would now be more submissive to the dead than she had ever been to the living Godfrey. * * * * *