where on earth are you going to live when Father marries
again? Of course, I shall graduate at Cambridge. He won't oppose that
now. Magdalen, why don't you marry, too?"

"I can't, dear Bessie. No one wants me."

"May I go on?"

"No. Please don't."

"I think I will all the same. Why not marry Lord Lossiemouth after all?
Don't speak. I want to place the situation dispassionately before you. I
have thought it carefully over. You are an extremely attractive woman,
Magdalen. I don't know what it is about you, I fail to analyse it, but
one becomes attached to you. You can make even a home pleasant. And if a
man once cared for you it is improbable that he would cease to care just
because you are no longer young. I take my stand on the basic fact that
there certainly has been a mutual attachment. I then ask myself----"

At this moment the door opened and the footman announced "Lord
Lossiemouth."

The shock to both women was for the moment overwhelming.

Magdalen recovered herself almost instantaneously and welcomed him with
grave courtesy, but she was unable to articulate.

He had seen the amazement in the four eyes turned on him as he came in,
and cursed Colonel Bellairs in his heart. Why had not the old idiot
warned Magdalen of his coming?

He had felt doubtful of his reception. A simulated coldness on
Magdalen's part was, perhaps, to be expected. But for her blank
astonishment he was not prepared.

"This is Bessie," she said in a shaking voice.

Bessie! This tall, splendid young woman. Could this be the tiny child of
three who used to sit on his knee, and blow his watch open.

"I cannot be expected to remember you," said Bessie, advancing a limp
hand. She fixed a round dispassionate eye on his heavy, irritable face,
and found him unpleasant looking.

He instantly thought her odious.

And they all three sat down simultaneously as if by a preconcerted
signal.

"Are you staying in the neighbourhood?" asked Magdalen, as a paralysed
silence became imminent. A faint hectic colour burnt in her cheeks.

Lord Lossiemouth pulled himself together, and came to her assistance.
Together they held back the silence at arm's length.

Yes, he was staying in the neighbourhood--at Lostford in fact. House
property near the river. Liable to floods.

Did he mention the word floods?

Yes. Floods at certain seasons of the year. Time to take measures now
before the autumn, etc.

Magdalen was glad to hear of some measures bei