-if I may stop him!" said the Viscount scowling.

"I don't think--no, I don't think he ever will, Tom!"

"Gad love us!" exclaimed the Viscount suddenly in altered tone.
"Nunky--sir--look yonder! 'Tis Betty herself and she's seen us! O
Lard, sir--she's coming!"

Glancing swiftly round, the Major sat with breath in check watching
where my lady was descending the steps into the rose-garden, as fresh,
as fair and sweet as the morning itself. With one accord they rose
and, side by side, went to meet her.

"Heavens!" she cried as they came up. "How glum you look--and the sun
so bright too! Ha' you no greeting for me?"

"Madam," said the Viscount with a prodigious bow, "I was but now
relating how, last night, I saw you in a lane, seated upon a wall."

"Was I, Pan?"

"Indeed, my lady!" he answered, taking out his snuff-box.

"And did you see me, too?"

"Who else should see you?" questioned the Viscount staring.

"I thought 'twas only Major d'Arcy--thought to see."

"I saw you also, madam."

"Art sure, Pan?"

"O pasitive, madam!"

"And prithee--what saw you?"

"'Tis no matter----"

"What saw you, Pan--Tom?"

"I saw that Dalroyd fellow--brutalise your foot."

My lady's cheek grew rosy and her delicate nostrils expanded suddenly,
but her voice was smooth and soft as ever.

"Will you swear it, Pan?"

"On oath!" he answered.

"Alack!" she sighed. "On what slender threads doth woman's reputation
hang! And if I say I was not there?"

"Then, my lady, I am blind or, having eyes, see visions----"

"Was ever such a coil!" she sighed. "Dear Pan, hast ever been my
second brother, so do I forgive thee and, thus forgiving, bid thee go,
thinking on me as kindly as thou may'st and believing that thine eyes
do verily see visions." So the Viscount bowed and went, somewhat stiff
in the back and making great play with his snuff-box. "Dear Pan!" she
murmured as she watched him go, "I might have loved him had I any love
to spare. And now--you, John--will you rail at me, too?"

"No, my lady," he answered dully, "never again!"

"Yet your voice is cold and hard! Did you think to see me too?"

"Aye, I saw--I saw," he answered wearily.

"And if I say you saw me not?"

"Then, my lady, I will say I saw you not."

Now at this she came near, so near that he was conscious of all her
warm and fragrant loveliness and thrilled to the contact of her hand
upon the sleeve of the war-worn Ramillie coat.

"And--wilt