e time and rest? London is so
terribly hot. Mother has three functions still to stay for, and I shall
have to come back again for our last evening, the political one--so I
don't want to go all the way to Monkland; and anywhere else, except with
you, would be rackety. Eustace looks so seedy. I'll try and bring him,
if I may. Granny is terribly well.

"Best love, dear, from your.
"BABS."

The same afternoon she came, but without Miltoun, driving up from the
station in a fly. Lord Dennis met her at the gate; and, having kissed
her, looked at her somewhat anxiously, caressing his white peaked beard.
He had never yet known Babs sick of anything, except when he took her out
in John Bogle's boat. She was certainly looking pale, and her hair was
done differently--a fact disturbing to one who did not discover it.
Slipping his arm through hers he led her out into a meadow still full of
buttercups, where an old white pony, who had carried her in the Row
twelve years ago, came up to them and rubbed his muzzle against her
waist. And suddenly there rose in Lord Dennis the thoroughly
discomforting and strange suspicion that, though the child was not going
to cry, she wanted time to get over the feeling that she was. Without
appearing to separate himself from her, he walked to the wall at the end
of the field, and stood looking at the sea.

The tide was nearly up; the South wind driving over it brought him the
scent of the sea-flowers, and the crisp rustle of little waves swimming
almost to his feet. Far out, where the sunlight fell, the smiling waters
lay white and mysterious in July haze, giving him a queer feeling. But
Lord Dennis, though he had his moments of poetic sentiment, was on the
whole quite able to keep the sea in its proper place--for after all it
was the English Channel; and like a good Englishman he recognized that if
you once let things get away from their names, they ceased to be facts,
and if they ceased to be facts, they became--the devil! In truth he was
not thinking much of the sea, but of Barbara. It was plain that she was
in trouble of some kind. And the notion that Babs could find trouble in
life was extraordinarily queer; for he felt, subconsciously, what a great
driving force of disturbance was necessary to penetrate the hundred folds
of the luxurious cloak enwrapping one so young and fortunate. It was not
Death; therefo