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'Et chacun croit fort aisement, Ce qu'il craint. ' LA FONTAINE.
The night of the masked ball had arrived. A large party had assembled at Wilderleigh, including Lady Pierpoint and her daughters, and Doll. It was Doll's first visit to Wilderleigh since Mr. Loftus's marriage, and as he looked down the dinner-table at Sibyl he wondered at his own folly in coming. He thought he had 'got over it,' but to-night he found that he had made a sufficiently grave mistake in supposing so. Unimaginative persons never know when they have got over anything, because they have no fore-knowledge in absence of the stab which a certain presence can inflict. So Doll walked stolidly in -- where Mr. Loftus in a remote but not forgotten passage of his own life had feared to tread -- and then writhed and bit his lip at the hurt he had inflicted upon himself.