After a long sleepless night of tossing to and fro, Vixen rose with thefirst stir of life in the old house, and made herself ready to face thebleak hard world. Her meditations of the night had brought no new lightto her mind. It was very clear to her that she must go away—as far aspossible—from her old home. Her banishment was necessary foreverybody's sake. For the sake of Rorie, who must behave like a man ofhonour, and keep his engagement with Lady Mabel, and shut his oldplayfellow out of his heart. For the sake of Mrs. Winstanley, who couldnever be happy while there was discord in her home; and last of all,for Violet herself, who felt that joy and peace had fled from the AbbeyHouse for ever, and that it would be better to be anywhere, in thecoldest strangest region of this wide earth, verily friendless andalone among strange faces, than here among friends who were but friendsin name, and among scenes that were haunted with the ghosts of deadjoys.
She went round the gardens and shrubberies in the early morning,looking sadly at everything, as if she were bidding the trees andflowers a long farewell. The rhododendron thickets were shining withdew, the grassy tracks in that wilderness of verdure were wet and coldunder Vixen's feet. She wandered in and out among the groups of wildgrowing shrubs, rising one above another to the height of forest trees,