You ought--I am sure you ought--to have a guilty conscience; but you look perfectly brazen!" Sir Luke's banter was generally accepted with indifference, but on this occasion it provoked Lady Dunstable.

She protested with vehemence that she had given Mrs.Meadows every chance, and that a young woman who was both trivial and conceited could not expect to get on in society.

Sir Luke gathered from her tone that she and Mrs.Meadows had somewhat crossed swords, and that the wife might look out for consequences.

He had been a witness of this kind of thing before in Lady Dunstable's circle; and he was conscious of a passing sympathy with the pleasant-faced little woman he remembered at Crosby Ledgers.

At the same time he had been Rachel Dunstable's friend for twenty years; originally, her suitor.