CHAPTER V. THE ENCOUNTER

Ruth Wesmacott rode back like one in a dream, with vague and hazy notions of what she saw or did. So overwrought was she by the interview from which she came, her mind so obsessed by it, that never a thought had she for Diana and her indisposition until she arrived home to find her cousin there before her. Diana was in tears, called up by the reproaches of her mother, Lady Horton--the relict of that fine soldier Sir Cholmondeley Horton, of Taunton. The girl had arrived at Lupton House a half-hour ahead of Miss West…