ngs of every dream. This new life
into which Sir Isaac led her by the hand promised not only that release
but more light, more colour, more movement, more people. There was to be
at any rate so much in the way of rewards and compensation for her pity
of him.

She found the establishment at Putney ready for her. Sir Isaac had not
consulted her about it, it had been his secret, he had prepared it for
her with meticulous care as a surprise. They returned from a honeymoon
in Skye in which the attentions of Sir Isaac and the comforts of a
first-class hotel had obscured a marvellous background of sombre
mountain and wide stretches of shining sea. Sir Isaac had been very fond
and insistent and inseparable, and she was doing her best to conceal a
strange distressful jangling of her nerves which she now feared might
presently dispose her to scream. Sir Isaac had been goodness itself, but
how she craved now for solitude! She was under the impression now that
they were going to his mother's house in Highbury. Then she thought he
would have to go away to business for part of the day at any rate, and
she could creep into some corner and begin to think of all that had
happened to her in these short summer months.

They were met at Euston by his motor-car. "_Home_," said Sir Isaac, with
a little gleam of excitement, when the more immediate luggage was
aboard.

As they hummed through the West-End afternoon Ellen became aware that he
was whistling through his teeth. It was his invariable indication of
mental activity, and her attention came drifting back from her idle
contemplation of the shoppers and strollers of Piccadilly to link this
already alarming symptom with the perplexing fact that they were
manifestly travelling west.

"But this," she said presently, "is Knightsbridge."

"Goes to Kensington," he replied with attempted indifference.

"But your mother doesn't live this way."

"_We_ do," said Sir Isaac, shining at every point of his face.

"But," she halted. "Isaac!--where are we going?"

"Home," he said.

"You've not taken a house?"

"Bought it."

"But,--it won't be ready!"

"I've seen to that."

"Servants!" she cried in dismay.

"That's all right." His face broke into an excited smile. His little
eyes danced and shone. "Everything," he said.

"But the servants!" she said.

"You'll see," he said. "There's a butler--and everything."

"A butler!" He could now no longer restrain himself. "I was weeks," he