A Woman Martyr

								

What could Vansittart do but accept? With many deprecatory glances at
Joan--which, as she rode on looking straight before her, she either did
not, or would not see,--he accompanied uncle and niece through the pale
sunshine which now bathed the wet streets and shone upon the dripping
bushes and bright green foliage of the trees, to the door of Sir Thomas’
tastefully beflowered mansion in one of the largest West-end squares.
Here, before the groom had had time to wait upon his mistress, he was
off his horse, and at her stirrup.
"Forgive me," he pleaded, as she eluded his help and sprang lightly
down.  "I could not resist the temptation!"
Had she heard him?  She had marched on into the house.  "She will not
appear at luncheon," he told himself bitterly, as he accompanied the
very evidently friendly Sir Thomas up the steps and through the hall.
"She will make some plausible excuse to avoid me, as she has always
done, worse luck!"

                               CHAPTER II

But for once Lord Vansittart’s good star seemed in the ascendant.  Joan
was seated at the end of the long table in the big, finely furnished
diningroom, where luncheon was already being handed round by the men in
Sir Thomas’ fawn-and-silver livery to some ladies and a man or two who
had dropped in and been invited to stay by Lady Thorne. As the kindly,
middle-aged, motherly-looking lady welcomed him with what he felt to be
pleasurable astonishment, he felt less sickened by the mingled scent of
savoury entrées and the pines, forced strawberries and rich rose blooms
that decorated the luncheon-table in profusion.  Perhaps--she seemed to
smile upon him, almost to sympathize, indeed, as Sir Thomas had made no
secret of doing some months previously--his hostess might stand his
friend in his hitherto dismally unsuccessful wooing.
While he accepted a vacant place on her right hand, and chatted about
his travels, his ear was pitched to hear what Joan was talking so
brightly about to Lady Mound and her daughters at the other end of the
table.  He lost the thread of Lady Thorne’s remarks, until she startled
him agreeably by asking him whether they would meet him that afternoon
at the concert at Dulwich House.
"Are you--is Miss Thorne--going?" he stammered.  "I--of course I only
arrived last night, but Lady Dulwich is such an old friend, I know I
should be quite the bien-venu!"
"Joan, you are coming with me to Lady Dulwich’s this afternoon, of
course?" asked her aunt, when there was a lull in the conversation.
"No?  Why not?"
"I am riding to Crouch Hill to see poor Nana," she said, and the
determined tones of her resonant young voice seemed to strike upon
Vansittart’s hot, perturbedly beating heart.  "I know it is not a month
yet since I went last--my uncle is an autocrat, as I daresay you know,
Lady Mound!  He only allows me to see my poor old nurse once a month!
But I had a letter from her, she is worse than usual.  I meant to have