She remembered Margery’s sleek face as it had peered at her in the shadows of the passage: “Will you be good enough to hand this letter yourself to my master?”

Margery had known that from her hand he would take it. Margery had a devil’s instinct of the folly of men and women.

CHAPTER VI
THE PERFECT ROSE, DROOPING

Such is the fond illusion of my heart,

Such pictures would I at that time have made;

And seen the soul of truth in every part,

A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed.

So once it would have been—’tis so no more:

I have submitted to a new control,

A power is gone which nothing can restore....