Fotheringhame returned late from the coverts, and long after the keeper had brought in his bag. 'Did you lose your way?' asked Mary. 'No, Miss Montgomerie; but I lost a locket from my chain--a locket that I would not lose for any sum of money.' 'And you found it, I hope?' 'Yes--here it is--but after a long hunt among the gorse and brake.' 'Is it so valuable, then?' 'To me it is.' 'May I ask what it contains?' asked Mary, laughingly, as she saw it dangling from his watch-chain. 'Well--a lock of hair--and----' 'What more?' she continued, archly. 'If you insist on knowing, the likeness of my--future wife,' said he in a whisper, yet not so low but that it reached the ears of the startled Annabelle; and Mary was so shocked, so pained and full of pity for her, that she grew very pale indeed, and questioned him no more, and he laughingly retired to dress for dinner. 'So--so,' thought Annabelle; 'the locket I gave him actually contains the portrait of a woman--doubtless, she of the hazel eyes!' Fotheringhame felt that he loved, or had loved, this proud girl earnestly and deeply; and that she with equal earnestness and depth resented something on his part which had, perhaps, driven her to loving some one else; thus the new emotion of jealousy was infused in his mind, imparting a constraint to his manner, while Annabelle felt that she had been merely the plaything of his idle hours. Thus each shut up their real feelings; and to a greater extent than either knew, they were at cross purposes. Annabelle thought that she had overheard and discovered enough to cure her even of regret, and to steel her heart and make her seem what she wished to be, studiedly calm and indifferent to all appearance; but this resolution was rather severely tested when after dinner, instead of joining Sir Piers in the smoking-room, Fotheringhame came lounging deliberately out to the terrace before the house, where she was lingering alone, with a Shetland shawl thrown over her head, and when he joined her, and--as she thought with singular coolness and effrontery--made some commonplace remarks upon the warmth and beauty of the autumnal evening, to which she assented coldly and briefly. 'Chance has thrown us together again--a chance for which I had ceased to hope,' said he, in a low and earnest voice; 'and, Annabelle--if you will once more permit me to call you so--I would wish to talk with you calmly and dispassionately over that estrangement which has been a source of great bewilderment and the keenest sorrow to me.' She was amazed at his hardihood; but said, quietly and gently, while keeping her face averted, as he continued to walk by her side: