'Can the woman be a "free-lance," though still in society?' he surmised, with pain in his heart, for, 'free-lance' or not, he felt that he loved her--yea, madly--as only men at his age often do love a woman. He knew that she was deemed by some what they termed rather a 'debatable widow,' whom the social police in the vicinity of Aldershot, where she had rather suddenly appeared--police who consist of embittered spinsters, inquisitive matrons with unmarried daughters, whom her dazzling beauty eclipsed, were rather addicted to 'tearing to pieces,' a process which Mrs. Trelawney treated with profound indifference or disdain. There was a bold, gay _bonhomie_ about her that might be no more than a mere delight in the things of this life, a pretty playfulness and recklessness of spirit that passed in a handsome young matron, and which the 'social police' resented, adding 'that admiration was food and drink to her.' '"Free-lance" or not,' he thought again; 'to see is to admire, to know her is to love her; but she laughs at my passion as if it were that of a love-sick boy.' 'Would to God I had never met you!' said he, 'for the meeting has ruined a life that, but for you, if not a happy, was at least a contented one.' 'Ruined _your_ life!' she exclaimed, as if with surprise. 'Yes; and I shall cross your path no more. Our lives are shaped out for us to a great extent, and mine was planned out for me by others. Oh, by what infernal fatality have you, too, the name of Laura!' 'It was, I suppose, given me by my godfathers and godmothers. You seem to be familiar with it,' she added, with one of her merriest laughs. Dalton knew that a lover laughed at has a lost cause; he knew too--fatally for his own peace--that the love he had for weeks upon weeks past been striving to stifle in his breast, was a love that he had no right to offer; but her reception of it stung him deeply, and in reply to her laughter he said, gravely and steadily, 'Then I am to understand that you have been amusing yourself with me--simply flirting to keep your hand in, Mrs. Trelawney?' he asked, in a voice that was intensely low and clear. 'Precisely so,' she said, with a nod and a saucy smile; 'playing the game that always requires two to play it.' 'What game?' 'Love-making.' 'Cruel--cruel! God may forgive you, but I never will!' he exclaimed, and wheeling round his horse, galloped furiously away. How astonished Dalton would have been could he have seen the change that came over the face and manner of the lady he had just left so abruptly.