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I think this is the longest letter than I have ever written to you, but then it is so important. Dearest, we must meet and talk things over. The Greenings are going into Hastings on Tuesday to look at a house, so will you come to me at Starvecrow?

My kisses, you sweet, and all my love.

PETER.

It was nearly midnight when he had finished writing at the table in his bedroom. He folded up the letter and slipped it under the blotting paper, before getting into bed and sleeping soundly.

But the next morning he tore it to pieces.

§ 16

On the last day of the old year Mary Pembroke came down to Conster Manor, arriving expensively with a great deal of luggage. Her beauty was altogether of a more sophisticated kind than Jenny's and more exotic than Doris's—which, though at thirty-eight extinct in the realm of nature, still lived in the realm of art. Mary was thirty-one, tall and supple, with an arresting fineness about her, and a vibrant, ardent quality.

The family was a little restless as they surrounded her in the drawing-room at tea. She had that same element of unexpectedness as Gervase, but with the difference that Gervase was as yet raw and young and under control. Mary gave an impression of being more grown-up than anyone, even than Lady Alard and Sir John; life with her was altogether a more acute affair.