t neglect anything
that brought you nearer to me."

Then they went on, and meeting the other guests in the hall, Sylvia
acknowledged the shower of congratulations with a smiling face. She
escaped after dinner, however, without a sign to Bland, and did not
reappear. During the evening, he found Ethel West sitting alone in a
quiet nook.

"Mrs. Marston seemed a little disturbed at the news you gave her," he
remarked.

"So I thought," said Ethel.

"I suppose the George you mentioned is her trustee, who went to Canada
and took your brother? You once told me something about him."

"Yes," said Ethel. "You seem to have the gift of arriving at correct
conclusions."

"He's an elderly man--a business man of his cousin's stamp--I presume?"

Ethel laughed.

"Oh, no; they're of very different type. I should imagine that he's
younger than you are. He was at Herbert's one afternoon when you
called."

"Ah!" said Bland. "I shall, no doubt, get to know him when next I come
down."

Then he talked about other matters until he left her, and after a while
he found Kettering alone.

"Did you ever meet George Lansing?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," said his host. "I know his cousin better."

"He has been out in Canada, hasn't he?"

"Yes; went out to look after Mrs. Marston's property. I understand he
has been more or less successful."

"When did he leave England?"

Kettering told him, and Bland considered.

"So Lansing has been out, and no doubt going to a good deal of trouble,
for two years," he said. "That's something beyond an ordinary
executor's duty. What made him undertake it?"

Kettering smiled.

"It's an open secret--you're bound to hear it--that he had an
admiration for Sylvia. Still, there's no ground for jealousy. Lansing
hadn't a chance from the beginning."

Bland concealed his feelings.

"How is that? He must be an unusually good fellow if he stayed out
there to look after things so long."

"For one reason, he's not Sylvia's kind. It was quite out of the
question that she should ever have married him."

Feeling that he had, perhaps, said too much, Kettering began to talk of
the next day's sport; and soon afterward Bland left him and went out on
the terrace to smoke and ponder. Putting what he had learned together,
he thought he understood the situation, and it was not a pleasant one,
though he was not very indignant with Sylvia. It looked as if she made
an unfair use of Lansing's regard for