to lunch--I can't hear you--never mind what people
will say. I am coming over to lunch at one o'clock, mind you are in.
Good-bye, I don't want much to eat, but have something for Snell and the
chauffeur. Good-bye."

Then the wire went dead, nor could all Alan's "Hello's" and "Are you
there's?" extract another syllable.

Having ordered the best luncheon that his old housekeeper could provide
Alan went off for his walk in much better spirits, which were further
improved by his success in persuading the tenant to do without the new
buildings for another year. In a year, he reflected, anything might
happen. Then he returned by the wood where a number of new-felled oaks
lay ready for barking. This was not a cheerful sight; it seemed so cruel
to kill the great trees just as they were pushing their buds for another
summer of life. But he consoled himself by recalling that they had been
too crowded and that the timber was really needed on the estate. As he
reached the house again carrying a bunch of white violets which he
had plucked in a sheltered place for Barbara, he perceived a motor
travelling at much more than the legal speed up the walnut avenue which
was the pride of the place. In it sat that young lady herself, and her
maid, Snell, a middle-aged woman with whom, as it chanced, he was on
very good terms, as once, at some trouble to himself, he had been able
to do her a kindness.

The motor pulled up at the front door and out of it sprang Barbara,
laughing pleasantly and looking fresh and charming as the spring itself.

"There will be a row over this, dear," said Alan, shaking his head
doubtfully when at last they were alone together in the hall.

"Of course, there'll be a row," she answered. "I mean that there should
be a row. I mean to have a row every day if necessary, until they leave
me alone to follow my own road, and if they won't, as I said, to go to
the Court of Chancery for protection. Oh! by the way, I have brought
you a copy of _The Judge_. There's a most awful article in it about that
Sahara flotation, and among other things it announces that you have left
the firm and congratulates you upon having done so."

"They'll think I have put it in," groaned Alan as he glanced at the head
lines, which were almost libellous in their vigour, and the summaries
of the financial careers of Sir Robert Aylward and Mr. Champers-Haswell.
"It will make them hate me more than ever, and I say, Barbara, we can't
live in a