"It was when I was so young--just eighteen--like Hester. Oh! but you don't know about Neville--no one does now. People seem all to have forgotten him. But he came into his property here--the Abbey--the old Abbey--just when I was growing up. I saw him here first--but only once or twice. Then we met in Scotland. I was staying at a house near his shooting. And we fell in love. Oh, I knew he was married!--I can never say that I didn't know, even at the beginning. But his wife was so cruel to him--he was very, very unhappy. She couldn't understand him--or make allowances for him--she despised him, and wouldn't live with him. He was miserable--and so was I. My father and mother were dead! I had to live with Ralph and Edith; and they always made me feel that I was in their way. It wasn't their fault!--I _was_ in the way. And then Neville came. He was so handsome, and so clever--so winning and dear--he could do everything. I was staying with some old cousins in Rossshire, who used to ask me now and then. There were no young people in the house. My cousins were quite kind to me, but I spent a great deal of time alone--and Neville and I got into a way of meeting--in lonely places--on the moors. No one found out. He taught me everything I ever knew, almost. He gave me books--and read to me. He was sorry for me--and at last--he loved me! And we never looked ahead. Then--in one week--everything happened together. I had to go home. He talked of going to Sandford, and implored me still to meet him. And I thought how Ralph and Edith would watch us, and spy upon us, and I implored him never to go to Sandford when I was at Upcote. We must meet at other places. And he agreed. Then the day came for me to go south. I travelled by myself--and he rode twenty miles to a junction station and joined me. Then we travelled all day together." Her voice failed her. She pressed her thin hands together under the onset of memory, and that old conquered anguish which in spite of all the life that had been lived since still smouldered amid the roots of being. "I may tell you?" she said at last, with a piteous look. Catharine bent over her. "Anything that will help you. Only remember I don't ask or expect you to say anything." "I ought"--said Alice miserably--"I ought--because of Mary." Catharine was silent. She only pressed the hand she held. Alice resumed: "It was a day that decided all my life. We were so wretched. We thought we could never meet again--it seemed as though we were both--with every station we passed--coming nearer to something like death--something worse than death. Then--before we got to Euston--I couldn't bear it--I--I gave way. We sent a telegram from Euston to Edith that I was going to stay with a school friend in Cornwall--and that night we crossed to Paris--" She covered her face with her hands a moment; then went on more calmly: