'We acted very wrongly,' said Lady Wantley, in a low tone. 'He--my husband--now knows that we were not rightly guided in the matter. We were swayed by considerations of no real moment. She loved David then; she was very steadfast. It was he who gave way. Lord Wantley sent for him and made him withdraw his offer. Do you think that now---- Ah, Cecily, if I could only hope to leave Penelope in so safe a haven!' Cecily's lips quivered. Not even to comfort her old friend could she, or would she, say what she believed to be false. To her simple heart such love as that once avowed to herself by Penelope for Downing could not change or die away. It might be thrust back out of sight at the call of conscience, but the void could never be filled by another man. David Winfrith? Why, Penelope had often laughed at him in the old happy days when she, Cecily, was first at the Settlement. Oh no! David Winfrith might follow Mrs. Robinson all over the world, but Penelope would ever keep outside the haven offered by him, if, indeed--and again a flash of remembrance crossed her mind--such haven was still open to her. She could say nothing comfortable, and so kept silent, but her troubled look answered for her. Lady Wantley drew a long, sharp breath. 'I cannot hope,' she muttered, 'to be wholly forgiven.' II There are certain days and festivals when every association of the heart confirms the truth of the old saying that any company is better than none. So felt Wantley and Cecily sitting down to their lonely Christmas dinner--or lunch, as Mr. Jenkins more genteelly put it--in the vast dining-room, where, as the same authority assured Cecily, 'fifty could sit down easy.' Had these two not been at Marston Lydiate, they would now have been at the Settlement, Wantley doubtless grumbling, man-like, to himself because he was not spending Christmas Day alone, by his own fireside, with his own wife. But to-day even he felt the silence of the great house oppressive, and early in the afternoon he assented with eagerness to Cecily's proposal that they should walk down to the village and see the church where, as she reminded him, he had been baptized. Mrs. Moss, the housekeeper, and Mr. Jenkins, the butler, standing together by the window in the butler's pantry--which was from their point of view most agreeably situated, for it commanded the entrance to the house--watched the young couple set off from under the portico. They were talking together rather eagerly, Cecily flushed and smiling. 'It's easy to see they have not long been married,' said the housekeeper with a soft sigh. 'Still plenty to say, I expect.' But young Lady Wantley was shaking her head, and as she and her husband passed on their way, within but a few feet of the window behind which stood the couple who were looking at them with such affectionate interest, she exclaimed rather loudly: 'Oh, Ludovic, how can you say such a thing! I don't agree with you at all!'