"Oh, she just stared-over her shoulder;

you know her way."

"Look here, Molly, you

must not go about

saying that sort of thing.

People here don't

understand it; they'll only think—— "What?"

"Never mind what they'll think. The world is chock-full of wickedness, my child. But if half the people you meet are sinners, the other half are fools. I never knew any one yet who wasn't one or the other. So don't think about what they think, but mind what you say. See?"

to

"I'm sorry." She had come softly up the window where he stood; and now she was rubbing his sleeve with one side of her face and smiling with the other.

He stroked her hair.

"All right. Don't do it again, that's all." "I won't—if you'll only tell me one thing. Were you ever engaged to anybody but me?"

"No; I was never engaged to anybody but you."

"Then you were never in love with ten gentlemen at once like the Countess Pol--"

His answer was cut short by the entrance of Sir Peter Morley, followed by Captain Stanistreet.

40

CHAPTER IV.

THE FIRST STONE.

TYSON was much flattered by the rumour that Sir Peter Morley had pronounced his wife to be "the loveliest woman in Leicestershire"; for Lady Morley herself was a sufficiently splendid type, with her austere Puritan beauty. As for the Rector, it was considered that his admiration of Mrs Nevill Tyson somewhat stultified his utterances in the pulpit.

It is not always well for a woman when the judgment of the other sex reverses that of her own. It was not well for Mrs Nevill Tyson to be told that she had fascinated Sir Peter Morley and spoiled the Rector's sermons; it was not well for her to be worshipped

(collectively) by the riff-raff that swarmed about Thorneytoft at Tyson's invitation; but any of these things were better than for her to be left, as she frequently was, to the unmixed society of Captain Stanistreet. He had a reputation. Tyson thought nothing of going up to town for the week-end and leaving Louis to entertain his wife in his absence. To do him justice, this neglect was at first merely a device by which he heightened the luxury of possession. In his own choice phrase, he "liked to give a mare a loose rein when he knew her paces." It was all right. He knew Molly, and if he did not, Stanistreet knew him. But these things were subtleties which Drayton Parva did not understand, and naturally enough it began to avoid the Tysons because of them.

Apparently Mrs Nevill Tyson liked Stanistreet. She liked his humorous dark face and his courteous manners; above all, she liked that air of profound interest with which he listened to everything that she had to say; it made it easy for her to chatter to him as she chattered to nobody

else, except (presumably) her husband.

As

for Stanistreet, try as he would (and he tried a great deal), he could not make Mrs Nevill Tyson out. Day after day Mrs Nevill Tyson, in amazing garments, sat and prattled to him in the dog-cart, while Tyson followed the hounds; yet for the life of him he could not tell whether she was really very infantile or only very deep. You see she was Tyson's wife. It must be said she gave him every opportunity for clearing his ideas on the subject, and if he did not know, other people might be allowed to make mistakes. And when he came to stay at Thorneytoft for weeks at a time, familiarity with the little creature's moods only complicated the problem.

It was about the middle of February, and Stanistreet had been down for a fortnight's hunting, when, in the morning of his last day, Tyson announced his intention of going up to town with him to-morrow. He might be away for three weeks or a month altogether; it depended upon whether he enjoyed himself sufficiently.