"A man chooses his wife. She's his responsibility until she dies - or he does." Norton said rather comically: "And sometimes - oh, blessed death, eh?" We laughed, and Boyd Carrington said: "You needn't talk, my lad; you've never been married."

Shaking his head, Norton said: "And now I've left it too late."

"Have you?" Boyd Carrington's glance was quizzical. "Sure of that?" It was just at that moment that Elizabeth Cole joined us. She had been up with Mrs. Franklin.

I wondered if it was my fancy, or did Boyd Carrington look meaningly from her to Norton, and was it possible that Norton blushed?

It put a new idea into my head and I looked searchingly at Elizabeth Cole. It was true that she was still a comparatively young woman. Moreover, she was quite a uandsome one. In fact a very charming and sympathetic Person who was capable of making any man happy. And she and Norton had spent a good deal of time together of late. In their hunts for wild flowers and birds, they had become friends; I remembered how she had spoken of Norton being such a kind person. Well, if so, I was glad for her sake. Her starved and barren girlhood would not stand in the way of her ultimate happiness. The tragedy that had shattered her life would not have been enacted in vain. I thought, looking at her, that she certainly looked much happier and - yes, gayer, than when I had first come to Styles. Elizabeth Cole and Norton - yes, it might be.

And suddenly, from nowhere, a vague feeling of uneasiness and disquiet assailed me. It was not safe - it was not right - to plan happiness here. There was something malignant about the air of Styles. I felt it now - this minute. Felt suddenly old and tired - yes, and afraid.

A minute later the feeling had passed. Nobody had noticed it, I think, except Boyd Carrington. He said to me in an undertone a few minutes later:

"Anything the matter, Hastings?"

"No, why?"

"Well - you looked - I can't quite explain it."

"Just a feeling - apprehension."

"A premonition of evil?"

"Yes, if you like to put it that way. A feeling that - that something was going to happen."

"Funny. I've felt that once or twice. Any idea what?" He was watching me narrowly.

I shook my head. For indeed I had had no definite apprehension of any particular thing. It had only been a wave of deep depression and fear.

Then Judith had come out of the house. She had come slowly, her head held high, her lips pressed together, her face grave and beautiful.

I thought how unlike she was to either me or Cinders. She looked like some young priestess. Norton felt something of that too. He said to her:

"You look like your namesake might have looked before she cut off the head of Holofernes."

Judith smiled and raised her eyebrows a little.