The young wife's face flushed burning red, and then grew white as death.
"Pray bring me no more messages from Miss Charteris," she replied.

"I do not like her--she would only come to triumph over me; I decline to see her.

I have no message to send her." Then, for the first time, an inkling of the truth came to Lady Earle.
Evidently Dora was bitterly jealous of Valentine.

Had she any cause for it?
Could it be that her unhappy son had learned to love Miss Charteris when it was all too late?
From that day Lady Earle pitied her son with a deeper and more tender compassion; she translated Dora's curt words into civil English, and then wrote to Miss Charteris.
Valentine quite understood upon reading them that she was not yet pardoned by Ronald Earle's wife.
Time passed on without any great changes, until the year came when Lady Earle thought her grandchildren should begin their education.

She was long in selecting one to whom she could intrust them.