But here the wise ones were in fault, for though Grace Atherton's heart was not buried in her husband's grave, and, in fact, had never been her husband's at all, it was given to one who, though he cared for it once, did not prize it now, for, with all the intensity of his noble nature, Richard Harrington, of Collingwood; loved the beautiful girl whom, years ago, he had taken to his home as his child, and whom, it was said, he was to marry.

But if the belief that the love she once refused and which she would fain recover was lost to her forever rankled in her breast, Grace never made a sign, and laughed as gayly and looked almost as young and handsome as in the days when Richard was wooing her in the pleasant old English town across the sea.

She had loved Richard then, but, alas! loved money more, and she chose a richer man, old enough to be her father, who had died when she was twenty-one and left her the possessor of nearly half a million, every dollar of which she would have given to have recalled the days which were gone forever.
Grace had been intending to call upon Mrs.Tracy ever since she came to the park.

'Not,' as she said to her friend, Edith Hastings, 'for the woman's sake, for she knew her to be vulgar: but because she was a neighbor and the sister-in-law of Arthur Tracy,' And so at last she came, partly out of compliment and partly on business, into which last she plunged at once.

She was going to the mountains with Mr.Harrington and Miss Hastings: her cook, who had been with her seven years, had gone to attend a sick mother, and had recommended as a fit person to take her place the woman who had just left Tracy Park.
'I do not like to take a servant without first knowing something of her from her last employer,' she said: 'and, if you do not mind, I should like to ask if Martha left for anything very bad.' Mrs.Tracy colored scarlet, and for a moment was silent.