g, 'Lippa, dearest, what
is the matter?' There is an amount of concern in his voice that is
almost too much for her, but she has made up her mind to tell him it is
impossible for her to marry him, and cost what it may she will do it.

'Mr Dalrymple,' she begins in a low but perfectly calm voice, 'if you
remember I told you last night that I had something to say to you--'

'Certainly,' he says, 'that is why I came down so early; but why have
you changed so since yesterday?'

'That is exactly it, I have changed since yesterday,' says she,
'I--er--I think I led you to imagine that I would marry you, but--'

'But,' he echoes, bending towards her, 'you have not changed your mind,
have you?'

'Yes I have,' replies Philippa clasping her hands tightly behind her
back.

'Do you mean it?' he asks in a bewildered tone.

'Yes,' this very low.

'May I ask why you have changed?' and Dalrymple draws himself up and his
voice is cold and studiously polite. 'Is it money,--I am not very well
off I know, but I did not think you were the kind of girl to mind that?'

'Ah, you see I am different from what you thought, it is a good thing we
found it out before it was too late.'

Jimmy looks at her curiously, and then catches her in his arms. 'Oh my
dearest,' he says, 'you can't mean it, you could not be so cruel--'

For a second Lippa feels she cannot hold out any longer, but it is only
for a second, and then freeing herself from his embrace she says slowly
and distinctly--'I mean all I have said.'

'I must go then,' says Jimmy, a world of sorrow in his honest brown
eyes.

'Yes,' she replies, not daring to look up till she hears the door shut
behind him, and then she realises all she has done: sent away the man
she loves, the one man who is 'her world of all the men'; sent him away
thinking she is cruel and mercenary. She chokes back the tears that
start to her eyes; the others must not know, must not even suspect, but
oh the aching at her heart.

It goes on raining steadily all day, and every one is dull and
depressed, even Chubby. Dalrymple suddenly discovers that it is
absolutely necessary for him to be back at the barracks as soon as
possible, and bidding farewell, decamps.

Lady Anne, despite the weather, tramps off to the village to preside at
a sewing-class. Philippa is forbidden by Mabel to put her nose out of
doors, who then retires to Lady Dadford's private boudoir where she
spends the afternoon.

'What shall we