This was her mood one day in the beginning of December, indeed, it had been her mood always for the last three months; but in the leisure of her late solitude her anger had intensified. This was her mood as she walked in the garden, in the cold sunshine, looking at the pale prim faces of the fading chrysanthemums,--the perky china asters lending the last touch of bright colour to the dying year--the languorous late roses, flaunting their sickly beauty, like ball-room belles who refused to bow their heads to the sentence of time. It was a morning of unusual mildness: the arrow-point of the old-fashioned vane pointed south-west; the leaves of the evergreen oaks were scarcely ruffled by the wind; the tall Scotch firs, red and rugged columns topped by masses of swart foliage, stood darkly out against a calm, clear sky. This garden was Laura’s chief delight in her loneliness. God had gifted her with that deep and abiding love of nature, which is perhaps one of His richest gifts. They who possess it can never be utterly joyless. She had walked in garden and orchard for more than an hour, when she came back by the old yew tree arch, and just in the spot where she had seen him more than half a year ago, she saw John Treverton standing again to-day. What an unstable thing is a woman’s anger against the man she loves! Laura’s first feeling at sight of John Treverton was indignation. She was on the point of receiving him with crushing politeness, of freezing him with coldest courtesy, when she perceived that he looked ill and careworn, and was gazing at her with eyes full of yearning tenderness. Then she forgot her wrongs in one moment, and went up to him and gave him her hand, saying gently,-- ‘What have you been doing with yourself all this time?’ ‘Knocking about London, doing very little good for myself or any one else,’ he answered frankly. Then he seemed to lose himself in the delight of being with her. He walked by her side, saying never a word, only looking at her with fond, admiring eyes; as if she had come upon him suddenly, like a revelation of hitherto unknown loveliness and delight. At last he found a voice, but not for any brilliant utterance. ‘Are you really just a little glad to see me again?’ he asked. ‘Remember, you promised me a welcome.’ ‘You have been in no haste to claim the fulfilment of my promise. It was made more than six months ago. You have had other welcomes in the meanwhile, no doubt, and have forgotten all about Hazlehurst Manor.’ ‘The Manor-house, and she who occupies it, have never been absent from my thoughts.’ ‘Really; and yet you have stayed away so long. That looks rather like forgetfulness.’ ‘It was not forgetfulness. There have been reasons--reasons I cannot explain.’ ‘And do they no longer exist?’ ‘No,’ he gave a long sigh, ‘they are at an end now.’ ‘You have been ill perhaps,’ speculated Laura, looking at him with a solicitude she could not wholly conceal.