ith say? Vixen laughed merrily at the image of
that cheated lady.

"To think that all my Egyptian researches should end in--Antony!" she
said, with a joyous look at her lover, who required to be informed
which Antony she meant.

"I remember him in Plutarch," he said. "He was a jolly fellow."

"And in Shakespeare."

"_Connais pas_," said Rorie. "I've read some of Shakespeare's plays, of
course, but not all. He wrote too much."

It was five o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived at Les
Tourelles. They had loitered a little in those sunny lanes, stopping to
look seaward through a gap in the hedge, or to examine a fern which was
like the ferns of Hampshire. They had such a world of lovers' nonsense
to say to each other, such confessions of past unhappiness, such
schemes of future bliss.

"I'm afraid you'll never like Briarwood as well as the Abbey House,"
said Rorie humbly. "I tried my best to patch it up for Lady Mabel; for,
you see, as I felt I fell short in the matter of affection, I wanted to
do the right thing in furniture and decorations. But the house is
lamentably modern and commonplace. I'm afraid you'll never be happy
there."

"Rorie, I could be happy with you if our home were no better than the
charcoal-burner's hut in Mark Ash," protested Vixen.

"It's very good of you to say that. Do you like sage-green?" Rorie
asked with a doubtful air.

"Pretty well. It reminds me of mamma's dress-maker, Madame Theodore."

"Because Mabel insisted upon having sage-green curtains, and
chair-covers, and a sage-green wall with a chocolate dado--did you ever
hear of a dado?--in the new morning-room I built for her. I'm rather
afraid you won't like it; I should have preferred pink or blue myself,
and no dado. It looks so much as if one had run short of wall-paper.
But it can all be altered by-and-by, if you don't like it."

They found Miss Skipwith pacing the weedy gravel walk in front of her
parlour window, with a disturbed air, and a yellow envelope in her hand.

"My dear, this has been an eventful day," she exclaimed. "I have been
very anxious for your return. Here is a telegram for you; and as it is
the first you have had since you have been staying here, I conclude it
is of some importance."

Vixen took the envelope eagerly from her hand.

"If you were not standing by my side, a telegram would frighten me,"
she whispered to Roderick. "It might tell me you were dead."

The telegram was from Captain Winsta