Madeline said nothing, but she felt a good deal. Mrs. Holt, from her manner more than from her words, sat in judgment upon her. She, this wife of a common farmer, actually dared to criticise the beautiful and admired and spoiled Miss West. “You see, ma’am,” she continued, “you are, and you are not, the child’s mother. He does not recognize you as that--I mean the child himself--you have kept away too long. In course you can’t be in two places at once, nor be both Miss West and Mrs. Wynne. ’Tisn’t my wish, nor my own doing, as I have taken your place with the child. He is main fond of me. And then, poor Mr. Wynne, he felt your leaving him at first, no doubt of that; but he is getting over it now; men haven’t as much feeling as we _think_.” Madeline listened with a guilty conscience, every word went home to her with as much force as a blow. She had chosen her line, and she must stick to single blessedness. There was to be no going back, at any rate at present. This conviction made her reckless, and she rushed with eagerness into the full tide of London gaiety with a passionate desire to escape from the past, to get away from the clamouring of a still articulate conscience, to annihilate memory by some great and effective action, and to be happy! But memory was not so easily stifled, and now that Laurence had disappeared from her life--such is the contrariness of humanity--she wished him back. At times, at races, at Hurlingham, in great assemblies, at the theatre, or in the Row, she searched the crowds for him in vain. Mrs. Leach, who was her constant companion and self-elected chaperon, reading her young friend by the light of her own memories, noticed that she was not like other girls, content and happy with her company and surroundings. There was a restlessness in her manner; she seemed to be continually looking for some one--some one who never came, who was never to be seen. Madeline preferred Lady Rachel’s, or Mrs. Lorimer’s company to the splendid widow’s society, and made futile efforts to shake off her shackles--efforts which were vain.