HOW OLIVE RECEIVED THE NEWS
Olive Castlemaine sat beneath a mimosa-tree in the garden of an hotel in Grasse in the south of France. Near her sat her father, who was diligently reading a French newspaper. They had been sitting thus for some time, neither speaking to the other. In spite of the sunshine, and the fresh winds which blew across the hills on which this French village was built, Olive looked pale and tired. Much of her old vivacity was gone. The sparkle had gone out of her eyes; her abundant life had departed. She looked wistfully away towards Cannes, the fashionable town which lay several hundreds of feet lower, away by the shores of the Mediterranean; then she glanced around the garden, and noted the almost tropical plants which grew in such abundance.
"Father, I want to get home," she said.
"You will have great difficulty in finding a more beautiful spot than this," said John Castlemaine.
"Yes, I know, but I cannot bear it any longer. I want to get back to work."
"You'll find it very hard to go back to the old scenes again; besides, you know what gossips our neighbours are."
"I do not see that that matters. I did a very cowardly thing in coming away."
"You did what I insisted on," replied her father.
"Yes, I know; but I ought to have insisted also."
"Yes, and—well, it has been bad enough here where we are unknown, but home at The Beeches—why, those newspaper reports would have driven us mad."