.

Miss Eversleigh, dignifiedly tall, but youthfully frank, as he
remembered her, was waiting to drive him in a pony trap to the rectory.
A little pink, with suppressed consciousness and the responsibilities of
presenting a stranger guest to her guardian, she seemed to Randolph more
charming than ever.

But her first word of news shocked and held him breathless. Bobby, the
little orphan, a frail exotic, had succumbed to the Northern winter. A
cold caught in New York had developed into pneumonia, and he died on the
passage. Miss Avondale, although she had received marked attention from
Sir William, returned to America in the same ship.

"I really don't think she was quite as devoted to the poor child as all
that, you know," she continued with innocent frankness, "and Cousin Bill
was certainly most kind to them both, yet there really seemed to be some
coolness between them after the child's death. But," she added suddenly,
for the first time observing her companion's evident distress, and
coloring in confusion, "I beg your pardon--I've been horribly rude and
heartless. I dare say the poor boy was very dear to you, and of course
Miss Avondale was your friend. Please forgive me!"

Randolph, intent only on that catastrophe which seemed to wreck all
Captain Dornton's hopes and blunt his only purpose for declaring
himself, hurriedly reassured her, yet was not sorry his agitation had
been misunderstood. And what was to be done? There was no train back to
London for four hours. He dare not telegraph, and if he did, could he
trust to his strange patron's wise conduct under the first shock of this
news to his present vacillating purpose? He could only wait.

Luckily for his ungallant abstraction, they were speedily at the
rectory, where a warm welcome from Mr. Brunton, Sibyl's guardian, and
his family forced him to recover himself, and showed him that the
story of his devotion to John Dornton had suffered nothing from Miss
Eversleigh's recital. Distraught and anxious as he was, he could not
resist the young girl's offer after luncheon to show him the church with
the vault of the Dorntons and the tablet erected to John Dornton, and,
later, the Hall, only two miles distant. But here Randolph hesitated.

"I would rather not call on Sir William to-day," he said.

"You need not. He is over at the horse show at Fern Dyke, and won't be
back till late. And if he has been forgathering with his boon companions
he won't be very pleasa