st that he could just clutch at its sharp spikes and
be tossed off again. Only one definite immediate fact stuck in his
quivering grasp. He must give the girl every chance--must hold himself
passive till she had taken them...

In the court Effie ran up to him with her leaping terrier.

"I was coming out to meet you--you and Owen. Miss Viner was coming, too,
and then she couldn't because she's got such a headache. I'm afraid I
gave it to her because I did my division so disgracefully. It's too bad,
isn't it? But won't you walk back with me? Nurse won't mind the least
bit; she'd so much rather go in to tea."

Darrow excused himself laughingly, on the plea that he had letters to
write, which was much worse than having a headache, and not infrequently
resulted in one.

"Oh, then you can go and write them in Owen's study. That's where
gentlemen always write their letters."

She flew on with her dog and Darrow pursued his way to the house.
Effie's suggestion struck him as useful. He had pictured himself
as vaguely drifting about the drawing-rooms, and had perceived the
difficulty of Miss Viner's having to seek him there; but the study,
a small room on the right of the hall, was in easy sight from the
staircase, and so situated that there would be nothing marked in his
being found there in talk with her.

He went in, leaving the door open, and sat down at the writing-table.
The room was a friendly heterogeneous place, the one repository, in the
well-ordered and amply-servanted house, of all its unclassified odds and
ends: Effie's croquet-box and fishing rods, Owen's guns and golf-sticks
and racquets, his step-mother's flower-baskets and gardening implements,
even Madame de Chantelle's embroidery frame, and the back numbers of the
Catholic Weekly. The early twilight had begun to fall, and presently
a slanting ray across the desk showed Darrow that a servant was coming
across the hall with a lamp. He pulled out a sheet of note-paper and
began to write at random, while the man, entering, put the lamp at his
elbow and vaguely "straightened" the heap of newspapers tossed on the
divan. Then his steps died away and Darrow sat leaning his head on his
locked hands.

Presently another step sounded on the stairs, wavered a moment and then
moved past the threshold of the study. Darrow got up and walked into
the hall, which was still unlighted. In the dimness he saw Sophy Viner
standing by the hall door in her hat and jacket. She s