The lunch, however, was not a very successful one, and Evelyn refused to take any further action about Chester Street, and was so determined in her resistance that her friend at last gave up the argument, and with something very like the quarrel she had deprecated, allowed Mrs. Rowland to depart alone for her hotel, which she did in great fervour of indignation and distress. But as she walked quickly along the long line of the park, she perceived with a pang of alarm and surprise, the invalid’s chair being drawn across the end of the ride, into the same path where she had met Saumarez an hour or two before. Was it possible that Madeline could be right? Was he going back to wait for her there? She stood but for a moment and watched the slow mournful progress of the chair, the worn-out figure lying back in it, the ashen face amid the many wraps. A certain awe came over her. She had been long out of the world, and had never been very wise in such matters: and who could believe that a man in the last stage of life should be able to amuse himself by schemes at once so base and so frivolous? She turned back half-ashamed of herself for doing so, and went home another way. It might be, she said to herself with a compunction, that all he meant was after all what he thought his children’s interest: then with a thrill of self-suspicion asked herself, was this the vanity by which Madeline, too clear sighted, had suggested she might be moved? Oh, clearly the world was not a place for her! The mere discussion of such possibilities abashed and shamed her. Her simple husband, who could not cope with these fine people, and upon whom probably they would look down--her home, far from all such ignoble suggestions, her own difficulties, which might be troublesome enough, but not like these--how much better they were! Her heart had been a little caught by the aspect of the old life from which she had been separated so long, and she had begun to think that with all the advantages her new position gave her, it might be pleasant to resume those of the old one, and venture a little upon the sea of society, which looked so bright at the first glance. Had she yielded to this temptation no doubt the good Rowland would have followed her guidance, pleased with anything she suggested, delighted for a time with the fine company, giving up his chosen life for her sake. And it is very probable that, had Lady Leighton foreseen the disgust with which her warning would fill her friend’s mind, she would have been chary about giving it, and would have preferred to let Evelyn take her chance of compromise and danger. The worst of society is, that it deadens the mind to the base and vile, taking away all horror of things unclean, by inculcating a perpetual suspicion of their existence. But no such deadening influence had ever been in Evelyn’s mind. She sent another letter to her husband by that afternoon’s post, which, in the midst of