Sibyl was an inconsolable widow. Her grief reached a depth which placed her beyond the succour of human sympathy, and Lady Pierpoint, who had lost her young husband in her youth, was felt to take a superficial view of Sibyl's bereavement.

She shut herself up at Wilderleigh for a year and refused comfort, and then suddenly married Doll, the only man except Mr. Gresley whom she had allowed to see her during her widowhood.

In rather less than a month after her marriage with him she made the interesting discovery that he was the only man in the world who really understood her. His gift of platitude, harmonizing as it did with hers, was an inexhaustible source of admiration to her. She was wont to say in confidence to her woman friends, that, devotedly as she had loved her first husband, she had found her ideal in her second one; and that it was to Doll she owed the real development of her character, a subject in which she took great interest.

For some years, while her daughter remained an only child, she was passionately devoted to her. But when her son was born she ceased to take much interest in the little girl, who was by this, time rather spoilt, and consequently tiresome. Doll, who proved exemplary in domestic life, took to her when Sibyl forgot her, and became deeply attached to her. Later in life Sibyl became inconsolably jealous of her daughter.

THE END.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.

By the Author of 'The Red Badge of Courage.'