th a touch of impatience. "What is it,
Ambrose? Where is Seton?"

"If you please, ma'am, I couldn't find her--that is to say," Ambrose
went on nervously, "I didn't look for her. I thought, ma'am, I would
rather tell you myself. You mustn't be startled, ma'am," and Anne at
this looking up at the old man saw that he was pale and
startled-looking himself, "but it's--it's Major Graham."

"Major Graham?" repeated Anne, and to herself her voice sounded almost
like a scream. "What about him? Have you heard anything?"

"It's _him_, ma'am--him himself!" said Ambrose. "He's in the library.
I'm a little afraid, ma'am, there may be something wrong--he looked so
strange and he did not answer when I spoke to him. But he's in the
library, ma'am."

Anne did not wait to hear more. She rushed past Ambrose, across
the landing, and down the two flights of steps which led to the
library--a half-way house room, between the ground-floor and the
drawing-room--almost before his voice had stopped. At the door she
hesitated a moment, and in that moment all sorts of wild suppositions
flashed across her brain. What was it? What was she going to hear? Had
Kenneth turned back half-way out to India for _her_ sake? Had some
trouble befallen him, in which he had come to seek her sympathy? What
_could_ it be? and her heart beating so as almost to suffocate her, she
opened the door.

Yes--there he stood--on the hearthrug as she had last seen him in that
room. But he did not seem to hear her come in, for he made no movement
towards her; he did not even turn his head in her direction.

More and more startled and perturbed, Anne hastily went up to him.

"Kenneth," she cried, "what is it? What is the matter?"

She had held out her hand as she hurried towards him, but he did not
seem to see it. He stood there still, without moving--his face slightly
turned away, till she was close beside him.

"Kenneth," she repeated, this time with a thrill of something very like
anguish in her tone, "what is the matter? Are you angry with me?
_Kenneth_--speak."

Then at last he slowly turned his head and looked at her with a strange,
half-wistful anxiety in his eyes--he gazed at her as if his very soul
were in that gaze, and lifting his right hand, gently laid it on her
shoulder as he had done the evening he had bidden her farewell. She did
not shrink from his touch, but strange to say, she did not feel it,
and some indefinable instinct made her turn her eyes awa