er. She really liked him very much, but she shared
something of Conway's feeling about the burglar. The idea that Denys
belonged in any sense to anybody else, needed a good deal of getting
used to.

She had certainly wondered once or twice in the last three years
whether young Henchman, who wrote so regularly to Denys, would ever
become more than a friend.

Charlie's telegram three days ago saying he had passed his final, and
was coming up from Scotland to see about a post and would call at St.
Olave's _en route_, had rather taken away her breath. His call
had been only a short one, but he had asked if he might return the
following day and tell them whether he had obtained the post.

He had duly returned--successful--with a good berth--with
prospects--with life opening out before him, and she had been
surprised at the gravity and anxiety that had shadowed his face even
when he spoke so hopefully of the good things that had come to him.

But the shadow and the gravity were all gone now. It was only his fear
that Denys would not see anything in him to love, that in the three
years in which he had worked, and hoped, and loved her, she might have
met someone else who was more worthy of her, and to whom she had given
the love he so longed to gain. That very evening he had put his fate
to the touch, over the nursery fire, while Denys waited to fetch away
Tony's light, and now he was bubbling over with fun and laughter,
and acting more like a big schoolboy than a sober young man who was
contemplating the cares of matrimony.

It seemed to Mrs. Brougham that the world had gone spinning round her
in an unprecedented manner in the last twenty-four hours, and she was
not sure whether she was on her head or her heels.

Suppose Conway--or Gertrude--why, Reggie Alston wrote to Gertrude as
regularly as the weeks went round!--or Willie----

She gave herself a mental shake and scolded herself for letting
her head be turned with all these happenings. Why, Conway was only
nineteen and Gertrude just eighteen, and what would schoolboy Willie
say if she put him into such a line of possibilities!

She brought her thoughts back to the conversation round the table, and
found that Charlie was still in the full swing of plans.

"Easter will be four or five weeks after that," he was saying, "and I
shall get mother to have you down then, Denys--and Gertrude too," he
looked across at Gertrude--"and it will be so jolly, because I shall
get