d himself from
his disappointment to thank her for the little attention, and when she
was gone he slowly opened Charlie's letter.

It was just a newsy, chatty letter, telling of the pleasures of his
holiday at Whitecliff and especially of the pleasure of being with
Denys for a whole week, but when he came to one sentence, written
only with the thought of giving pleasure to Reggie, Reggie stopped and
frowned.

"Gertrude looks awfully well and seems enjoying herself tremendously,"
wrote Charlie. "She and Audrey are quite friends, which is convenient,
and Denys and I don't feel selfish if we walk behind and let Gertrude,
Audrey, and Cecil make the pace in front."

So Gertrude was at Whitecliff, and she had never thought it worth
while to tell him she was going to have such a nice change!

She was enjoying herself tremendously! Hitherto she had always made
him a sharer in her pleasures by her vivacious descriptions of them.
Who was Cecil?

He looked across the narrow Scotch street, on to the row of small
houses opposite him. The morning sunshine was flooding them, while his
room lay in shadow. That was like his life. He was in the shadow and
other people were in the sunshine--especially this Cecil.

He ate up his breakfast at last and made a good meal of it too, for
he was a healthy fellow, and even stale bread and tasty butter go down
when you are hungry, and then he got out his cycle and polished it up,
for there was a club run on and he was going to ride part of the way
out with them, returning early to attend a wedding in the afternoon.

He decided, as he rubbed away at his machine, that he would not
be married on a Bank holiday, when his turn came. He would not
like his guests to feel bored at losing one of their precious
few-and-far-between holidays. Saturday was a much more sensible
day for a wedding.

Bored or not bored, the wedding party was large and cheerful, and
being mostly made up of the chief townsfolk and local gentry who
banked at the one and only Bank, Reggie knew most of the guests, and
was himself, partly owing to his merry, boyish ways, and partly owing
to his modesty and readiness to serve anybody in the smallest things,
quite a popular person. He enjoyed the first part of the proceedings
very much.

It was a lovely day, with brilliant sunshine and a warm air that
seemed as if summer had come to surprise the Spring, and directly the
bride had cut the cake there was a general exodus to the g