"Pride and wounded feeling," Beatrix answered, with the unerring instinct of a woman. When he remembered that night long years ago he did not blame her much. They had scorned and flouted her cruelly among them--they had no pity on the erring girl--they had driven her to desperation, forgetting how young and friendless she had been. He wondered much what had been the history of the intervening years, and how she had come by her name of Mrs. Lynn. "Only her _nom de plume_, perhaps," he thought; and then he said, aloud: "Beatrix, do you not think I ought to write to St. Leon Le Roy to come down here?" "I think it would be perfectly proper," she replied. CHAPTER LX. Mrs. Wentworth and Mr. Gordon were not the only persons at the seaside who suspected that Mrs. Lynn was other than she seemed. The curiosity of the pretty, faded widow, Mrs. Merivale, had been aroused by the first sight of Mrs. Lynn. She spared no pains until she obtained an introduction to the noted writer, over whose charms of mind and person all the best people at the seaside were enthusiastic in admiration. When she had done so, she was almost frightened by the astonishing likeness of Mrs. Lynn to Laurel Vane. "It is the dead alive!" she said to herself. "I can no longer believe that St. Leon's wife drowned herself. There has been some great mistake. She went away and hid herself from all who knew her, and she has reappeared as Mrs. Lynn. I wish I knew the history of those intervening years, and what she intends to do. Will she return to St. Leon? Will he forgive her and take her back?"