DECLARES A WOMAN'S LOVE At nine o'clock that night Gabrielle left her father, and ascended to her own pretty room, with its light chintz-covered furniture, its well-filled bamboo bookcases, its little writing-table, and its narrow bed in the alcove.

It was a nest of rest and cosy comfort.
Exchanging her tweed dress, she put on an easy dressing-gown of pale blue cashmere, drew up an armchair, and, arranging her electric reading-lamp, sat down to a new novel she intended to finish.
Presently Elise came to her; but, looking up, she said she did not wish to be disturbed, and again coiled herself up in the chair, endeavouring to concentrate her thoughts upon her book.

But all to no purpose.

Ever and anon she would lift her big eyes from the printed page, sigh, and stare fixedly at the rose-coloured trellis pattern of the wall-paper opposite.

Upon her there had fallen a feeling of vague apprehension such as she had never before experienced, a feeling that something was about to happen.
Lady Heyburn was, she knew, greatly annoyed that she had not made her appearance at dinner or in the drawing-room afterwards.