uzzled brows, smiled a little at "Your aunt is making a
devil of a fuss," and passed quite unheeded the solitary "F." in the
signature.

"I think you ought to go to-day," she commented.

"Not because of any argument advanced there," he growled passionately.

"But your aunt ... she is making a--a fuss. One has to conciliate
aunts at times."

"My aunt is really a most estimable person. I promise myself some
amusement when she explains the origin of the 'fuss' to you."

"To me?"

"Yes. Have I not your permission to bring her to see you in London?"

"Something was said about that."

"May I add that I hope to make Mr. Vanrenen's acquaintance on
Tuesday?"

She looked at him in rather a startled way.

"Are you going to call and see my father?" she asked.

"Yes."

"But--why, exactly?"

"In the first place, to give him news of your well-being. Letters are
good, but the living messenger is better. Secondly, I want to find out
just why he traveled from Paris to London yesterday."

The air was electric between them. Each knew that the other was
striving to cloak emotions that threatened at any moment to throw off
the last vestige of concealment.

"My father is a very clever man, Mr. Fitzroy," she said slowly. "If he
did not choose to tell you why he did a thing, you could no more
extract the information from him than from a bit of marble."

"He has one weak point, I am sure," and Medenham smiled confidently
into her eyes.

"I do not know it," she murmured.

"But I know it, though I have never seen him. He is vulnerable through
his daughter."

Her cheeks flamed into scarlet, and her lips trembled, but she strove
valiantly to govern her voice.

"You must be very careful in anything you say about me," she said with
a praiseworthy attempt at light raillery.

"I shall be careful with the care of a man who has discovered some
rare jewel, and fears lest each shadow should conceal an enemy till he
has reached a place of utmost security."

She sighed, and her glance wandered away into the sun-drowned valley.

"Such fortresses are rare and hard to find," she said. "Take my own
case. I was really enjoying this pleasant tour of ours, yet it is
broken in two, as it were, by some force beyond our control, and the
severance makes itself felt here, in this secluded nook, a retreat not
even marked on our self-drawn map. Where could one be more secure--as
you put it--less open to that surge of events that drives resist