"So," she had said before she laid the letter aside, "he is home
again--and he means to carry it through?"
Then she had settled down to think, in her own comfortable chair
(for if one may not be happy, comfort is at all events within the
reach of some of us), and the troubled look had supervened.
Each of our lives is like a book with one strong character moving
through its pages. The strong character in Lady Cantourne's book
had been Sir John Meredith. Her whole life seemed to have been
spent on the outskirts of his--watching it. And what she had seen
had not been conducive to her own happiness.
She knew that the note she had just received meant a great deal to
Sir John Meredith. It meant that Jack had come home with the full
intention of fulfilling his engagement to Millicent Chyne. At first
she had rather resented Sir John's outspoken objection to her niece
as his son's wife. But during the last months she had gradually
come round to his way of thinking; not, perhaps, for the first time
in her life. She had watched Millicent. She had studied her own
niece dispassionately, as much from Sir John Meredith's point of
view as was possible under the circumstances. And she had made
several discoveries. The first of these had been precisely that
discovery which one would expect from a woman--namely, the state of
Millicent's own feelings.
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