d a perfect time--and have now to pay for it, I
suppose."

Held back by his smile from bending to kiss him, poor Lady Valleys
fidgeted from head to foot. A sudden impulse of sheer womanliness caused
a tear to fall on his hand.

When Miltoun perceived that moisture, he said:

"It's all right, mother. I'm quite willing to come."

Still wounded by his voice, Lady Valleys hardened instantly. And while
preparing for departure she watched the two furtively. They hardly
looked at one another, and when they did, their eyes baffled her. The
expression was outside her experience, belonging as it were to a
different world, with its faintly smiling, almost shining, gravity.

Vastly relieved when Miltoun, covered with a fur, had been taken down to
the carriage, she lingered to speak to Mrs. Noel.

"We owe you a great debt. It might have been so much worse. You mustn't
be disconsolate. Go to bed and have a good long rest." And from the
door, she murmured again: "He will come and thank you, when he's well."

Descending the stone stairs, she thought: "'Anonyma'--'Anonyma'--yes, it
was quite the name." And suddenly she saw Barbara come running up again.

"What is it, Babs?"

Barbara answered:

"Eustace would like some of those lilies." And, passing Lady Valleys,
she went on up to Miltoun's chambers.

Mrs. Noel was not in the sitting-room, and going to the bedroom door, the
girl looked in.

She was standing by the bed, drawing her hand over and over the white
surface of the pillow. Stealing noiselessly back, Barbara caught up the
bunch of lilies, and fled.

CHAPTER XII

Miltoun, whose constitution, had the steel-like quality of Lady
Casterley's, had a very rapid convalescence. And, having begun to take
an interest in his food, he was allowed to travel on the seventh day to
Sea House in charge of Barbara.

The two spent their time in a little summer-house close to the sea; lying
out on the beach under the groynes; and, as Miltoun grew stronger,
motoring and walking on the Downs.

To Barbara, keeping a close watch, he seemed tranquilly enough drinking
in from Nature what was necessary to restore balance after the struggle,
and breakdown of the past weeks. Yet she could never get rid of a queer
feeling that he was not really there at all; to look at him was like
watching an uninhabited house that was waiting for someone to enter.

During a whole fortnight he did not make a single allusion to Mrs. Noe