Stupid speculation by an over-confident, silly French husband just before his death in Nevada had been the reason.

Madame Imogen had the kindest heart and the hardest common sense, and did credit to a distant Scotch descent.

She adored Sabine, as indeed she had reason to do, and looked after her house and her servants with a hawk's eye.
After dejeuner was over, the Dame d'Heronac and the Cure crossed the causeway bridge, and beyond the great towered gate entered another at the side, which conducted them into the garden, which sheltered itself behind immensely big walls from the road which curled beyond it, and the sea which bounded it on the northwest.

Here, whatever horticultural talent and money could procure had been lavished for four years, and the results were beginning to show.

It was a glorious mass of summer flowers; and was the supreme pleasure of Pere Anselme.