mother. "I wonder. He believes in your pretty face!
Well, it is pretty, I acknowledge that. Keep it as pretty as you can."

She didn't kiss her future daughter-in-law, but she tapped her lightly
on the shoulder and trudged back with head erect through the rain.

"It's a bad business," she said to herself thoughtfully. "He's rushed
his fence and there's a ditch on the other side of it, deep enough to
drown him!"

CHAPTER III

Winn wanted, if possible, a home without rows. He knew very little of
homes, and nothing which had made him suppose this ideal likely to be
realized.

Still he went on having it, hiding it, and hoping for it.

Once he had come across it. It was the time when he had decided to
undertake a mission to Tibet without a government mandate. He wanted
young Drummond to go with him. The job was an awkward and dangerous one.
Certain authorities had warned Winn that though, if the results were
satisfactory, it would certainly be counted in his favor, should
anything go wrong no help could be sent to him, and he would be held
personally responsible; that is he would be held responsible if he were
not dead, which was the most likely outcome of the whole business.

It is easy to test a man on the Indian frontier, and Winn had had his
eye on Lionel Drummond for two years. He was a cool-headed, reliable
boy, and in some occult and wholly unexpressed way Winn was conscious
that he was strongly drawn to him. Winn offered him the job, and even
consented, when he was on leave, to visit the Drummonds and talk the
matter over with the boy's parents. It was then that he discovered that
people really could have a quiet home.

Mrs. Drummond was a woman of a great deal of character, very great
gentleness, and equal courage. She neither cried nor made fusses, and no
one could even have imagined her making a noise.

It was she who virtually settled, after a private talk with Winn, that
Lionel might accompany him. The extraordinary thing that Mrs. Drummond
said to Winn was, "You see, I feel quite sure that you'll look after
Lionel, whatever happens."

Winn had replied coldly, "I should never dream of taking a man who
couldn't look after himself."

Mrs. Drummond said nothing. She just smiled at Winn as if he had agreed
that he would look after Lionel. General Drummond was non-committal. He
knew the boy would get on without the mission, but he also seemed to be
influenced by some absurd idea that Winn was to