She was beautifully dressed; she was seated in the most comfortable room that the inn afforded; her long journey had been full of variety, and almost luxuriously performed--for Fitzpiers did not study economy where pleasure was in question.

Hence it perhaps arose that Giles and all his belongings seemed sorry and common to her for the moment--moving in a plane so far removed from her own of late that she could scarcely believe she had ever found congruity therein.

"No--I could never have married him!" she said, gently shaking her head.

"Dear father was right.

It would have been too coarse a life for me." And she looked at the rings of sapphire and opal upon her white and slender fingers that had been gifts from Fitzpiers.
Seeing that Giles still kept his back turned, and with a little of the above-described pride of life--easily to be understood, and possibly excused, in a young, inexperienced woman who thought she had married well--she said at last, with a smile on her lips, "Mr.Winterborne!" He appeared to take no heed, and she said a second time, "Mr.
Winterborne!" Even now he seemed not to hear, though a person close enough to him to see the expression of his face might have doubted it; and she said a third time, with a timid loudness, "Mr.Winterborne! What, have you forgotten my voice ?" She remained with her lips parted in a welcoming smile.
He turned without surprise, and came deliberately towards the window.
"Why do you call me ?" he said, with a sternness that took her completely unawares, his face being now pale.