CHAPTER II
ROSE LYNDWOOD
Susannah Chressham had walked steadily half-way to the lodge before she stopped and reminded herself that she had no object in going there, and that the letter she carried would never be sent.
However, she could not at once return; if only to give colour to the feint that had got her from the house, she must remain a few moments in the garden.
It was a warm evening, but she had nothing over her silk dress, and as she paused in the shade of the chestnut avenue she shivered.
Through the broad leaves of the trees showed the night sky, pale with moonlight and the sparkle of the stars.
Miss Chressham tore the letter addressed to Selina Boyle into fragments and suddenly hurried on, the scraps of paper crushed in her hand.
She turned from the drive and mounted some shallow stone steps to a temple set on a hillock; a little Grecian temple shaded by the tops of the trees that lined the road and grown about with violets; behind the bank sloped away to a stream crossed by a moss-covered bridge.