“Perhaps that was what I intended,” said Lady Leighton; “but, dear, how late it is, I must go----” She had reached the door when she suddenly turned back. “What time did you fix for our visit to you, Evelyn? I must work it into our list. Without organisation one could never go anywhere at all. It must be between the end of October and the middle of December. Would the 10th November to the 20th suit you? or is that too long. One must be perfectly frank about these matters, or one never could go on at all.” “It must be when you please, and for as long as you please, dear Madeline,” said Mrs. Rowland. She added, “I fear, you know, it will be rather dull I don’t know whether there is any society, and James----” “I will put it down 10th to 15th,” said Lady Leighton, seriously noting this consideration. And then she gave her friend a hasty embrace, and hurried away. How strange it all was! Evelyn felt as if she had peeped through some crevice behind the lively bustling stage, and suddenly seen what was going on behind the scenes. There had been little behind the scenes in her own life. It had been sad, but it had all been open as the day. And now, when she stood at the beginning of a new life, she had nothing to wound, nothing to make her reluctant that any word should leap to light, even that story of hers which had been so near tragedy, of which Edward Saumarez had been the hero. She almost blushed at the importance she had given that story, now that she had seen again the man who had been the hero of it. It seemed to lose all the dignity and tragic meaning which had been the chief thing in her life for so long. While Evelyn was thinking this, a letter was put into her hand, in which her husband bade her do exactly as she pleased about the Chester Street house. “If you like to stay there for a little, my dear, and see your old friends, I shall like that best; and if you prefer to come home with me at once, and take possession of Rosmore, that is what I shall like best. It is for you to choose: and in the meantime I am coming back to town, to do whatever you like to-morrow night.” To-morrow of the day on which the letter was written meant that very day upon which Evelyn received it. She had not pretended to be in love with her good middle-aged husband, she, a subdued middle-aged woman. But what a haven of quiet, and plain honest understanding, and simple truth and right she seemed to float into when she realised that he was coming back to her to-night. CHAPTER IX.