By-and-by other thoughts came into her mind. She recalled her interview with old Lady Kynaston at Walpole Lodge, when she had so nearly promised her to give back her hand to her eldest son, when she would have done so had it not been for that sight of Maurice's face in the adjoining room. She wondered what Lady Kynaston had thought of her sudden change of mind; what she had been able to make of it; whether she had ever guessed at what had been the truth. It seemed only yesterday that the old lady had told her to be wise and brave, and to begin her life over again, and to make the best of the good things of this world that were still left to her. "There is a pain that goes right through the heart," Maurice's mother had said to her; "I who speak to you have felt it. I thought I should die of it, but you see I did not." Alas! did not Vera know that pain all too well; that heartache that banishes peace by day and sleep by night, and that will not wear itself out? And yet other women had borne it, and had lived and been even happy in other ways; but she could not be happy. Was it because her heart was deeper, or because her sense of pain was greater than that of others? Vera could not tell. She only wished, and longed, and even prayed that she might have the strength to become Denis Wilde's wife; that she might taste once more of peace, if not of joy; and yet all her longings and all her prayers only made her realize the more how utterly the thing was beyond her power. To Maurice, and Maurice alone, belonged her life and her soul, and Vera felt that it would be easier for her to be true to the sad, dim memory of his love than to give her heart and her allegiance to any other upon earth. So she sat and mused, and pondered, and the amber light in the east faded away into palest saffron, and the solemn shadows deepened and lengthened upon the still bosom of the water. Suddenly there came a sharp footstep and the rustle of a woman's silken skirts across the stone flags behind her. She looked up quickly; Helen stood beside her. Helen, in all the sheen of her gay Paris garments, with the evening light upon her uncovered head, and the glow of a passion, fiercer than madness, in her glittering eyes. Some prescience of evil--she knew not of what--made Vera spring to her feet. Helen spoke to her shortly and defiantly. "Miss Nevill, you are waiting here for my husband, are you not?" A faint flush rose in Vera's face. "Yes," she answered, very quietly. "I am waiting to speak a few words to him." "You have something to give him, have you not? Some letters that are mine, and which you have probably read." Helen said the words quickly and feverishly; her voice shook and trembled. Vera looked surprised and even indignant. "I don't understand you, Mrs. Kynaston," she began, coldly. "Oh, yes, you understand me perfectly. Give me my letters, Miss Nevill; you have no doubt read them all," and she laughed harshly and sneeringly.