CHAPTER Nine.
Often when Charles was out she took from the cupboard, between the folds of the linen where she had left it, the green silk cigar case.
She looked at it, opened it, and even smelt the odour of the lining--a mixture of verbena and tobacco.

Whose was it?
The Viscount's?
Perhaps it was a present from his mistress.

It had been embroidered on some rosewood frame, a pretty little thing, hidden from all eyes, that had occupied many hours, and over which had fallen the soft curls of the pensive worker.

A breath of love had passed over the stitches on the canvas; each prick of the needle had fixed there a hope or a memory, and all those interwoven threads of silk were but the continuity of the same silent passion.

And then one morning the Viscount had taken it away with him.