"This is the result of political machination," she said. "He has forgotten that we were not invited. Being absorbed in affairs of state he no longer keeps an account of the doings of the giddy throng." Then he recovered himself. "You were not invited," he said. "Isn't there some mistake about that? I thought"-- "Your impression naturally was that we were the foundation-stone of all social occasions," she responded; "but this time they have dispensed with us. We were not invited." "Say that you did not receive your invitation," put in Richard, restlessly. "The other way of stating it is nonsense." She paused an instant, as if his manner suggested a new thought to her. "I wonder," she said, slowly, "if there _could_ be a reason; but no, I think that is impossible. It must have been an accident. But you," she added to Tredennis, "have not told me why you are not with the rest of the world." "I came away early," he answered. "I was there for an hour." He was glad that she did not sit down; he wished that she would go away; it would be better if she would go away and leave them to themselves again. "It was very gay, I suppose," she said. "And you saw Agnes?" "I have just left her," he replied. "You ought to have stayed," she said, turning away with a smile. "It would have been better than quarrelling with Richard." And she went out of the room and left them together, as he had told himself it would be best she should. He did not look at her as she ascended the staircase; he stood with his back to the open door, and did not speak until he heard her go into the room above them. Then he addressed Richard. "Do you understand me now?" he said, sternly. "This is the beginning!" "The beginning!" exclaimed Richard, with a half frantic gesture. "If this is the beginning--and things go wrong--imagine what the end will be!" The room Bertha had entered was the nursery. In the room opening out of it Jack and Janey slept in their small beds. Upon the hearth-rug lay a broken toy. She bent to pick it up, and afterward stood a moment holding it in her hand without seeing it; she still held it as she sank into a chair which was near her. "I will stay here a while," she said. "This is the best place for me." For a few minutes she sat quite still; something like a stupor had settled upon her; she was thinking in a blind, disconnected way of Agnes Sylvestre. Everything would be right at last. Agnes would be happy. This was what she had wished--what she had intended from the first--when she had brought them together. It was she who had brought them together. And this was the plan she had had in her mind when she had done it; and she had known what it would cost her even then. And then there came back to her the memory of the moment when she had turned away from them to pour out Laurence's coffee with hands she could not hold still, and whose tremor he saw and understood. Poor Laurence! he must suffer too! Poor Laurence!