Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/186

 CHAPTER VII

A TRAGIC COIL

I

Mary, breakfasting late and at leisure, before her ride at eleven, had propped the ''Morning Post'' against the coffee-pot. Milly was arranging roses in a blue bowl.

"I'm miserable!" Mary suddenly proclaimed. She had let her eyes stray to the column devoted to marriage and the giving in marriage, and at last she had flung the paper away from her.

"Get on with your breakfast," said the practical Milly. "I've really no patience with you."

Mary rose from the table with big trouble in her face.

"You're a gaby," said Milly, scornfully. "If everybody was like you there'd be no carrying on the world at all. You're absurd. Mother is quite annoyed with you, and so am I."

"I'm simply wretched." The tone was very far from that of the fine resolute creature whom Milly adored.

The truth was Mary had been following a policy of drift and it was beginning to tell upon her. Nearly a week had gone since the visit to Laxton had disclosed a state of things which had trebly confounded confusion. Besides, that ill-timed pilgrimage had given duty a sharper