"Thank you, Marius, and I hope you will present her to me--in the autumn. Now will you not show me what you brought me from Venice?" Marius kissed her hand; he would have liked to have kissed her feet. CHAPTER II ROSE LYNDWOOD Susannah Chressham had walked steadily half-way to the lodge before she stopped and reminded herself that she had no object in going there, and that the letter she carried would never be sent. However, she could not at once return; if only to give colour to the feint that had got her from the house, she must remain a few moments in the garden. It was a warm evening, but she had nothing over her silk dress, and as she paused in the shade of the chestnut avenue she shivered. Through the broad leaves of the trees showed the night sky, pale with moonlight and the sparkle of the stars. Miss Chressham tore the letter addressed to Selina Boyle into fragments and suddenly hurried on, the scraps of paper crushed in her hand. She turned from the drive and mounted some shallow stone steps to a temple set on a hillock; a little Grecian temple shaded by the tops of the trees that lined the road and grown about with violets; behind the bank sloped away to a stream crossed by a moss-covered bridge. The moonlight was brilliant over it all, save where the chestnut leaves cast a moving shade on the white pillars. Susannah Chressham stepped on to the bridge and listened for a while to the endless ripple of the water falling over the stones below; then she again tore the letter across and across, and cast the fragments down into the stream. Lifting her eyes she could see the yellow lights in the windows of Lyndwood House, and for the second time she shivered. Slowly she retraced her way past the temple and reached the head of the steps. Beneath her the moonlight fell in bars across the road, fell between the chestnut trunks and glimmered on the hard white drive. Susannah Chressham stood motionless. A man's figure stepped out of the shadows into one of the patches of moonlight; he wore a long cloak flung over one shoulder and walked towards the house; the little clang of his sword against his spurs was distinct in the great stillness. Susannah uttered an exclamation; at that he stopped at the foot of the steps and looked up. "Rose," she said; "Rose--is that you?" "It is I," he answered; and at the tone of his voice she winced, as if, in a moment, all her unreasonable dreads faced her in tangible form. She did not speak. Her cousin came slowly up the steps to her. "It is late, why are you here, Susannah?" "And you--you return unexpectedly, Rose." He stood hat in hand, the moonlight on his shoulders and shining on the heavy hilt of his sword. "Marius is here?" "He came to-night--we thought you would follow to-morrow;" she spoke hurriedly half under her breath to get the better of the unsteadiness of her voice. Rose Lyndwood glanced at the lights of the house sparkling through the trees. "My lady is with Marius?"