It is deplorable.
Perhaps the hill climate has been too cold for her, Mademoiselle ?' * * * * * Lucy walked hurriedly back to the lawn to rejoin her companions.

The flood of misery within made movement the only relief.

Some instinct of her own came to the aid of the Marchesa's words, helped them to sting all the more deeply.

She felt herself a kind of murderer.
Suddenly as she issued blindly from the tangle of the rose-garden she came upon Eleanor Burgoyne talking gaily, surrounded by a little knot of people, mostly older men, who had found her to-day, as always, one of the most charming and distinguished of companions.
Lucy approached her impetuously.
Oh! how white and stricken an aspect--through what a dark eclipse of pain the eyes looked out! 'Ought we not to be going ?' Lucy whispered in her ear.

'I am sure you are tired.' Eleanor rose.