Ida looked up quickly as her husband pronounced the last name. Was it only her fancy, or did he turn away abruptly?
Somehow she could not rid herself of the fancy.
Then suddenly it occurred to her that she had heard the name, Vivian Deane, before. She remembered the conversation well.
While their former guests were there, she had been sitting in the rose-embowered veranda one day, while two of them passed on the lawn, and the fragments of their conversation floated up to her.
"I am surprised to find that Vivian Deane is not here," said one.
"Indeed! I would have been more surprised if she had been here," said the other.
They were idle words, almost meaningless, as far as she was concerned, but the name, Vivian Deane, clung to her for many days afterward. This was the last morning she would have with her husband. It was generally his custom to smoke in the grounds after breakfast. If she walked over the lawn she might be able to have a little chat with him.
She made a tour of the grounds, but to her surprise she did not see Eugene Mallard. Perhaps he was detained in the library writing letters. A little brook ran through a far corner of the grounds, and on either side of it tall laurel bushes grew.
Would life ever be any different for her? Would fate be always as unkind as now? Bitter tears, which she could not restrain, sprung to her eyes and coursed down her cheeks.
She tried to stop their flow, but she could not, though she realized that they would be a sorry object before her husband's guests. At that moment she heard the sound of footsteps.