For Mr Montague's letter--the letter which Hertha had refrained from reading before her talk with Winifred--had contained matter which would have been sorely mortifying to the heiress of White Turrets. The society among whose workers she had for a short time been enrolled had decided on dismissing her, feeling naturally indignant at the deception which its heads considered had been put upon them. Mr Montague was, of course, exonerated from all intentional collusion, but his position in the matter was unpleasant, and but for his firm and steady regard for Hertha, he might have visited on her some of his annoyance. "Nor could I have resented it if he had done so," thought Miss Norreys. But Mr Montague had behaved well and unselfishly. All he could do he had done, and that had been to obtain a promise that if Miss Maryon at once sent in her resignation it would be accepted in lieu of a dismissal. "They are by no means sorry to be free of her," he wrote, "for though a clever girl in several ways, her self-will and defiance of authority were impossible to stand, coupled as they were with complete inexperience and reluctance to ask or take advice." And then followed the remark already quoted about Winifred's change of quarters. Hertha sighed. "I do feel terribly sorry to have involved Mr Montague so uncomfortably," she said. "Even now I feel as if I could shake Winifred with pleasure." She took the letter out of her bag to read it again. She did not own to herself that in the postscript--for there was a postscript--lay its greatest interest. Yet her eyes dwelt on the two or three lines as if they would read in them more, far more, than was there. "I think I must tell you," wrote her old friend, "that at last, after all these years, I have heard from Austin. He writes cheerfully, and hopes to be able to return home for good next autumn. He is not married." But Hertha folded the page and replaced the letter resolutely in the envelope. "No," she said to herself, "I must not think of him at all. After all these years, as Mr Montague says, it would be worse than folly, utter madness, to risk reopening the old wounds." And Hertha knew how to use a mental lock and key. Still, all through the weeks and months that followed--through the fatigue and not infrequent trials and annoyances of her own almost overwhelmingly busy life--through her newly awakened, interest in, and friendship for, the family at White Turrets--through _everything_, there ran, like the rippling of an all but inaudible brook in the summer time, a little acknowledged refrain of gladness, of hope. And the words, which were set to this fairy music were always the same. "Austin is coming home for good next autumn. He is not married." ------------------------------------------------------------------------