Among the other guests at the “Calafornie,” Cannes, was a certain needy, worldly widow, Mrs. Plassy--Mrs. Bolingbroke-Plassy with a lively daughter of two-and-twenty. This widow, made valiant attempts to attach herself to Mrs. Hesketh,--who was notoriously rich, had the air of a duchess, and a charming landau at her disposal; it was also known to her, that the most distinguished people in Cannes had left cards upon this lady. But Mrs. Hesketh--who could play the _grande dame_ to perfection, had ‘no use’ for Mrs. Plassy, mistrusted her worming civilities, her subdued flatteries, and kept her inflexibly at arm’s length. The pretty companion was more approachable (Letty could never repulse a dog, much less a fellow-creature), and she and Miss Plassy, drawn together by their youth, and tastes, played tennis, and sang duets. The innocent soprano little suspected how deeply and sincerely she was hated by the contralto; she thought Lydia a pleasant, lively, unaffected girl, and if her mother _was_, as Cousin Maude declared, an inquisitive, marauding ‘old soldier,’ what harm did it do to anyone? ‘The old soldier’ had deeply resented Mrs. Hesketh’s uncompromising repulse; her animosity was kindled, and she instituted searching enquiries into the lady’s career,--which proved to be blameless; but, to her amazement, pretty, shrinking Mrs. Glyn, had a very black record! The fact leaked out--through a treacherous lady’s-maid--that this pretty girl was no less a person than the notorious and divorced Mrs. Blagdon! Fortunately the friends, were on the point of departure for San Remo, for Mrs. Plassy mentioned the discovery, as a dead secret, to every woman of her acquaintance in the hotel,--and they all held up their hands in speechless horror. * * * * * At the end of six months Mrs. Hesketh returned home, and by that time the great local scandal had been succeeded by others, and was more or less forgotten. Mr. Blagdon was said to be in America; Captain Lumley was in India; no one knew the whereabouts of the lady. She was living quietly in a country town thirty miles south of London, occasionally spending a few days at Oldcourt, but, on the whole, alone. To occupy her time she had taken up music, and worked hard; practising with a view to becoming a professional singer. As Mrs. Glyn, a solitary, pretty young woman, she made no acquaintances, with the exception of two or three elderly women in the same hotel, who regarded her as an interesting mystery; she could not be a widow, since she wore no scrap of mourning--presumably she had a husband,--but where? She kept herself conspicuously aloof from other people,--and why?