It was then that Vane began to reap her reward. Stuart seemed to remember all she had done for him, all her thoughtfulness, gentleness, womanly kindness; and it was to her he turned in a frank, friendly fashion, which at once delighted her and deceived her by its ring of apparently genuine forgetfulness. To London they all went, save the squire, and, in leaving him, Stuart thought of his absent cousin’s words; but it was only for a fortnight, and then he would be back again, brave in forced courage, steady in his pride, to walk over the very ground wherein his whole love lay buried. It was a delightful time to Vane; she rode, walked, went sight-seeing, with Stuart always in close attendance, and, though few of her acquaintances were in town, she noticed with pleasure that some of her “dear friends” were passing through London on their way from the Continent to the country, and she left them to draw their own conclusions as to her relationship with Stuart Crosbie. As for Stuart, he lived for the moment in a whirl of forced excitement and pleasure. He determined with reckless swiftness to give way to sorrow no more; he buried the memory of Margery, and set his foot, as he thought, firmly on the grave of his love; he even thrust recollection from him; he laughed, rode, chatted with Vane, and gradually her influence made itself felt. If, in the night, visions of his love floated through his dreams, pride in the morning dispelled his weakness by recalling her falseness; and he turned to Vane as a woman whom, though he could never love, he could respect and trust. To the world his devotion had but one name, that of a suitor; and, heedless of people’s tongues, heedless of Vane’s triumphant eyes, Stuart went on his way, living for a time in a dream of reckless excitement that would soon pass and leave him plunged in as deep an abyss of despair as before. It was in one of these moments that Margery had seen him beneath the trees, bending his handsome head to gaze into Vane’s eyes. The action meant nothing to him--Vane was his cousin, his confidante, his friend. Had his gaze but wandered to the carriage drawn beside the rails, and rested on the sweet face, pallid and drawn by the agony of pain that had come to her, he would have forgotten his cousin’s existence, and rushed with a madness of joy, a delirium of happiness, to Margery’s side. But Margery was unseen; the cousins paced by slowly, and the image of that face, that form with the right arm still hung in a sling, those eager eyes, was graven on her memory in characters the clearness of which tortured her, and the steadfastness of which nothing could remove. CHAPTER XIX. “Man’s love is like the restless waves, Ever at rise and fall; The only love a woman craves It must be all in all. Ask me no more if I regret-- You need not care to know;