It was the second week in August. Mrs. Stoddart had arrived at Noyes, and had driven over to see Annette, and to make the acquaintance of the Miss Nevills.

She was an immediate success with them, possibly because she intended to be one, and knew how to set about it.

The Miss Nevills had two worlds, the social and the literary, and each one had "right people" in it. In the social world the right people were of course those who belonged to the same social order as themselves, who were connected with, or related to, or friends of Nevills, or were connected with, or related to, or friends of the connections and relatives and friends of Nevills. Mrs. Stoddart allowed her visiting list to be probed, and quickly established herself as one of the right people. She knew people they knew. Her sister Lady Brandon was a frequent visitor at the Deanery of St. Botolph's, where they had lunched during the Church Congress. And it was her niece who became the second Mrs. Templeton when the first Mrs. Templeton, known of the Miss Nevills, died.

If, Reader, you have ever engaged in the back-breaking, hand-blistering task of eradicating a scattered and well-established colony of nettles, you have no doubt discovered that a nettle—except a few parvenus, growth of the last rains—does not live to itself alone. It possesses endless underground ramifications and knotted connections with other groups and neighbouring groves of nettles. Get hold of the root of one, and you pull up a long string rosetted at intervals with bunches of the same stimulating family. So it was with the social world of the Miss Nevills. There was always what they called "a link," and one of Aunt Harriet's chief interests in life was the establishment of these links in the case of each newcomer, though nothing much happened when it was established.

Just as you and I, Reader, in our vulgar, homely way, strike up an eager acquaintanceship, even form a friendship with equally communicative strangers on steamers, in omnibuses, in trains, because we have both stayed in the same hotel at Lauter-brunnen, or go to the same dentist, or derive benefit from the same pre-digested food, so the Miss Nevills continually established links by more aristocratic avenues with the assiduity of Egyptologists.

But much of the pleasure of Mrs. Stoddart's visit was damped by the fact which she discreetly concealed till almost the last moment, that she was the bearer of an invitation from Mr. Stirling to Annette to spend a few days at Noyes during her own visit there. Aunt Maria was wounded to the quick. She had made up her mind to cultivate Mr. Stirling, to steep herself in long literary conversations with him, to read aloud certain important chapters of The Silver Cross to him, on which his judgment would be invaluable. And here was Annette, who had not an idea in her mind beyond housekeeping and gardening and singing in the choir, here was Annette preferred before her. Aunt Maria yearned to be admitted to the society of the "right people" in the literary world as well as the social one. She had been made much of by the camp followers of literature, who were always prodigal of their invitations. And a few uneasy vanities, such as the equally ignored Mr. Harvey, found a healing comfort as she did herself in their respectful adulation. But all the time she knew that she was an outsider in the best literary circles. There was no one more democratic than the author of Crooks and Coronets when she approached the literary class. She was, to use her own phraseology, "quite ready" to meet with urbanity anyone distinguished in the world of letters, quite regardless of family. But they apparently were not equally ready to meet her—at least, not to meet her a second time. Mr. Stirling was a writer of considerable importance, and Aunt Maria was magnanimously prepared to overlook the fact that his father had been a small shopkeeper in Hammersmith.

But he preferred Annette's society to hers.

Mrs. Stoddart hastened to lay a soothing unguent on the sensitive spirit of the celebrated authoress. It quickly transpired that the invitation to Annette had been mainly the result of Mrs. Stoddart's own suggestion.

"I begged him to let me have Annette with me for a few days," she said, "and he was most kind about it. He is one of my oldest friends."

Aunt Maria, somewhat mollified, yielded a dignified consent, and an incident which had had its painful moment was closed. The next day the news reached the Miss Blinketts with the afternoon delivery of milk that the carriage from Noyes Court had come to Red Riff, and that Annette had departed in it with a small dress-box at her feet, and a hat-box on the vacant seat beside her.

Noyes Court is not an old house as old houses go in Lowshire, not like Loudham close by, which has looked into its lake since Edward the Third's time. Noyes was built by Hakoun Le Geyt, to whom Henry the Eighth gave Noyes Priory and the estates belonging thereto. And Hakoun erected a long black and white timbered house, with elaborately carved beams and doorways, on the high ground above the deserted Priory. And possibly he took most of the lead from the Priory roof, and certainly he took some of the carved hammerbeams, for they have the word "Maria" running along them, as you may see to this day. For when Cardinal Wolsey came to visit him, the Priory was already a ruin. Perhaps Hakoun was a man of foresight, and may have realized that the great Cardinal, who was coming to Noyes on the quest of suppressing some of the Lowshire monasteries in order to swell the revenues of his new college at Ipswich, might lay his clutching hand on anything that still remained in the condemned Priory, and so thought it politic to appropriate what he could while opportunity offered.

However that may have been, Noyes is rich in ancient lattice and stained glass, and curious lead-work and gargoyle. And in the minstrels' gallery you may see how cunningly the carved angels and griffons have been inserted at intervals in the black oak balustrade.

Hakoun must have been a man of taste, though he was a parvenu in spite of his fine coat-of-arms: some said he was nothing better than one of Catherine of Aragon's pages, who became a favourite with England's stout young King when poor Catherine was herself in favour. But he had the wit to consolidate his position in Lowshire by marrying into one of its greatest families, the beautiful Jane de Ludham. Her father it was, Ralph de Ludham, who had made the passage through Sweet Apple Tree marsh because the hated Priors of Noyes hindered people passing through their lands. And his son-in-law, eager to conciliate his Lutheran father-in-law and his country neighbours, gave the stones of the Priory to build the new bridge over the Rieben which stands to this day. From the earliest times, almost from the Conquest, there had been trouble about the bridge. The Priors of Noyes were bound to keep it in good repair by reason of the lands they held on both sides of it. But the Priors had never troubled themselves to carry out their duty, and there was a grim justice in the fact that the very fabric of their Priory fulfilled the obligation which they themselves had ignored when the last of them was in his tomb, and a young Frenchman had taken possession of their lands.

The young Frenchman made good his hold on Noyes, and his successors prospered, marrying steadily into the Lowshire families, excepting a certain unlucky Richard who must needs wed a French maid-of-honour of Charles the Second's Court, and, as some averred, the daughter of that witty monarch. There is a charming portrait of Henriette of many curls in the gallery which certainly has a look of the Stuarts, hanging opposite her ill-fated Richard, who soon after the marriage got himself blown up with Lord Sandwich in the Royal James.

Mrs. Stoddart and Annette were sitting in the walled herb garden which Henriette in her widowhood had made, who had put with pardonable vanity her initials twined in gilded iron in the centre of the iron gate which led down to it from the terrace above. The little enclosed garden lay bathed in a misty sunshine. Beyond it, the wide lawns were still all silvered with dew in the shadows of the forest trees, which seemed to be advanced posts of the great forest gathered like an army on the other side of the river. The ground fell away before their eyes, in pleasaunce and water meadows, to where in the distance you could just discern the remains of the Priory near the bridge which had cost it so dear.

Even that "new" bridge was now old, and was showing ominous signs of collapse, and Annette's eyes followed the movements of tiny workmen crawling over it. The distant chink of trowel and hammer reached them through the haze of the windless summer morning.

It was evident that the two women had had a long conversation, and that Mrs. Stoddart was slowly turning over something point by point in her mind.

"You realize, Annette," she said at last, "that you can't go on living at Riff now you know who the Manvers are?"

"I was afraid you would say that."

"But surely you see it for yourself, whether I say it or not?"

Annette did not answer.

"There are no two ways about it. You must break with the Manvers root and branch."

Annette coloured painfully.

"Must I?"

"Doesn't your own common sense, if you would only use it, tell you the same?"

"I am very fond of Janey Manvers."

"That can't be helped."

"You see," said Annette slowly, "Janey and Roger are the two people I like best anywhere, except you. You don't know," turning her grave eyes to her companion, "how good they are."

"I never like people myself because they are good."

"No, I know. And it's very lucky for me you don't. And then, I dare say, you have always known numbers of good people. But it's different for me. I haven't. I've never been with good people except Aunt Cathie and you."

"If the sacred Miss Nevills could hear you now!"

"I used to think I hated goodness. But I see now that it was the theory of it, the talking about it, that sickened me. Janey and Roger never talk about it. And then, when I had broken away from the aunts and went to Paris, the life there was really evil under a thin veil which soon got torn. And then I came here, and met Janey and Roger, and got to know them well."

"He is Mr. Le Geyt's younger brother, I suppose?"

"No, first cousin."

"That short-nosed, sunburnt, silent man we met at the bridge yesterday?"

"Yes."

"I liked his looks."

"He is straight," said Annette, "and so is Janey. I always think of them together, because they are so alike. They might be brother and sister, and I'm sure they are as fond of each other as if they were. They aren't clever, of course, like you and Mr. Stirling, but then I'm not clever myself. They are just the kind of people I like."

"My poor child, I am afraid you must give them up."

"I'd rather give up anybody than them, except you."

"It isn't a question of what you'd rather do or not do. Now you know who they are, you cannot continue on terms of friendship with them. I don't want to force my will upon you. I only want to advise you for the best. Don't you see for yourself, without my insisting on it, that you will involve yourself in an impossible situation if you continue your friendship with them? If I were not here to point that out, surely, surely you could see it for yourself? Annette, if I were not here, if you had no one to advise you, what would you do?"

"I would tell them," said Annette. "I won't, because I've promised you not to tell anyone, but if I were——"

"Free?" suggested Mrs. Stoddart.

"Yes, if I were free, I should tell them both."

Mrs. Stoddart let her knitting fall into her lap, and stared at her companion.

"And what good, in the name of fortune, would come of that?"

"I don't know that any particular good would come of it, but I should feel happier in my mind. I never had any wish to tell the aunts. I don't know exactly why, but you don't somehow want to tell them things. But ever since I've known that Dick was Janey's brother I've wanted to tell her—her and Roger. It seems to come between me and them like a cloud. You see, they like me, and I like them. There is nothing kept back in their lives, and they think I'm the same as them. I feel as if I ought to tell them."

"But, my dear, if I know anything of people like the Manvers, especially when embedded in the country, it is that they would be terribly shocked, and the disclosure would make an estrangement at once."

"It might," Annette agreed. "I think you're right. I'm afraid it would. But I should like to tell them, all the same."

"They would not be wide-minded enough to understand."

"They're not wide-minded, I know that, and of course they may feel I've been here under false pretences."

"They certainly would. Wouldn't it be better to do as I advise—to leave Riff? You must lose them either way, Annette. Then why not lose them by going away, instead of telling them first and then having to go away?—for, of course, you could not remain. It would give less pain all round."

Annette locked her hands together.

"I would rather they knew the truth about me."

"The truth!" said Mrs. Stoddart, who, like most shrewd women, did not relish opposition. "The truth! And who will get at the truth if you tell that story of your act of supreme folly? Who will believe that you were not Dick Le Geyt's mistress? The truth! Do you think it is the truth about you that I have taken such trouble to conceal?"

"Yes, partly," said Annette. "And I have often wondered lately if it had not been a mistake."

"Why particularly lately?"

"Because of Roger Manvers."

"The young man at the bridge? I wondered whether he was in love with you when we were talking to him. But I did not think it mattered if he was."

"It matters to me."

"You mean you are actually thinking of him? Of course, he is most estimable, and a gentleman, one can see that at a glance, but isn't he a trifle dull, bornÉ?"

"I think I could get on better with a dull person, if he was kind and honourable, than a clever one. I've had one clever one—who wasn't honourable. You see, I'm only good-looking. I'm nothing else. That's why I like being with the Miss Blinketts and Mrs. Nicholls. I forgot perhaps you don't know Mrs. Nicholls is the washerwoman. A clever man would get tired of me, or bored with me, and he would expect so much, understandings and discriminations and things which I could not give, or only by a dreadful effort. If I married Roger, he would be pleased with me as I am."

"I have no doubt he would."

"And I should be pleased with him too."

"I am not so sure of that."

"I am, but for some time past I have wished he knew anything there was to know against me."

"Well, but, Annette, you know we agreed—you had my full approval—that you should tell everything to the man you were engaged to."

"I thought that all right at the time—at least, I mean I never thought about it again. But, of course, I did not know Roger then, and I had not realized how cruel it would be to him to go farther and farther, and think more and more of me, and get it firmly rooted in his mind that he would like to marry me,—it takes a long time for him to get his mind fixed,—and then, when I had accepted him and he was feeling very comfortable, to have this—this ugly thing—sprung upon him."

"I don't see how that can be helped."

"Yes, if he had been told very early in the day, he might have withdrawn,—of course he would have withdrawn if he had believed the worst,—but it would not have cost him much. He would have felt he had had a lucky escape. But as it is," Annette's voice wavered, "I am afraid Roger will be put to expense."

"Has he said anything?"

"Yes. No. I mean he said something the other day, but it was by the weir, and I know he thought I did not hear. I was listening to the water, and it made a noise. I heard every word, but I did not like to say so, because I saw he was rather surprised at himself, taken aback."

Mrs. Stoddart cogitated.

At last she said, "My dear, I know what is wise, and that is what I have advised you. But I also know that I am a managing woman, and that one must not coerce the lives of others. You are not what is called wise. And you never will be. But I perceive that you have some kind of course to steer your ship by, and I must even let you steer it. We can't both stand at the helm, Annette. I think you do not see the rocks ahead, which I have taken such trouble to avoid, but at any rate I have pointed them out. I take my hands off the wheel. I give you back your promise."

Mr. Stirling and Roger were coming through the slender iron gates with their scrolled initials, from which the white hanging clusters of the "Seven Sisters" had to be pushed back to allow them to pass.

"There are worse things than rocks," said Annette, looking at Roger. But she had become very white.