Lady Carlyon kept away from the hateful subject of Mrs. March, but Sir Percy understood well that his wife would shoulder the burden and carry it bravely and quietly. The idea of Alicia March being under his roof was odious and humiliating to Sir Percy Carlyon, but he saw no way out of it. His immediate departure for England after his marriage, and thence to his Continental post, had kept Lady Carlyon and Alicia March apart. The Carlyons had not been to America but once since, and then only for a few weeks, within a year of their marriage. Colonel Armytage had been stricken with paralysis, and Lady Carlyon, with Sir Percy, had hastened to him, arriving in time to find him conscious, but dying. Mrs. Armytage had followed her husband within a fortnight, her last days tended by Lady Carlyon, to whom she had been a mother. Within a month all was over and Lady Carlyon returned to Europe without going near Washington. The chapter of accidents which Senator March mentioned as having kept him and his wife from meeting the Carlyons in Europe had been really a series of clever stratagems on the part of the latter. When the Marches were on the Continent, especially at the Capitol, where Sir Percy Carlyon took his preliminary canter as Minister before winning the blue ribbon of an Embassy, he and Lady Carlyon had found it convenient to be absent at those times. Then when the Marches went to London the Carlyons managed to be on the Continent. Sir Percy could not possibly put himself in the position of avoiding General Talbott, who had visited him at his Continental post, and had been made an honoured guest. Only one person suspected why the Marches and the Carlyons had never met, and that was Alicia March. Nor were the Carlyons the only persons who avoided her, but of this her husband remained entirely ignorant. The stories of Senator March’s wealth made a sensation in the sphere of General Talbott’s and Mrs. March’s acquaintances. Mrs. March herself gave evidence of it in the splendour of her jewels and the cost and exquisiteness of her costumes. She spent with a lavish hand, and the world knew it. Sir Percy Carlyon, hearing rumours of this, thought to himself: "It is the same Alicia, whose passion for spending has grown by what it feeds on." Sir Percy Carlyon turned these things over in his mind while drinking tea on this December afternoon, but he said nothing of them. Then when tea was over, following the custom established after the birth of their first boy, the Carlyons went upstairs to pay a visit to the nursery. In saying good-night to the two beautiful little children, Lady Carlyon knelt down by their cribs and made a silent prayer, and Sir Percy, standing near her, did likewise, and thought himself the happiest of men, but for one thing--that which had happened in the far-away hill-country of India long years ago.