This was a faithful and exact account of my meeting with the first of those two of our neighbors who seemed, according to Lady Naselton’s report, to remain entirely outside the ordinary society of the place. Curiously enough, my meeting with the second one occurred on the very next afternoon.

We came face to face at a turning in the wood within a few yards of her odd little house, and the surprise of it almost took my breath away. Could this be the woman condemned to isolation by a whole neighborhood—the woman on whose shoulders lay the burden of Bruce Deville’s profligacy? I looked into the clear, dark eyes which met mine without any shadow of embarrassment—returning in some measure the keen interest of my own scrutiny—and the thing seemed impossible.

She spoke to me graciously, and as though to do so were quite a matter of course. Her voice. . . Read More