at a disadvantage with his father-in-law, whose bluntness of
speech seemed to demoralise him.

"Mr. Triggs thinks that you are slowly killing me," laughed Patricia.

Mr. Bonsor looked uncertainly at Patricia, and Mr. Triggs gazed at Mr.
Bonsor. He had no very high opinion of his daughter's husband.

"Well, mind you don't overwork 'er," said Mr. Triggs as he rose to go.
A few minutes later Patricia was deep in the absorbing subject of the
life history of the potato-beetle.

"Ugh!" she cried as the clock in the hall chimed five. "I hate
beetles, and," she paused a moment to tuck away a stray strand of hair,
"I never want to see a potato as long as I live."

That evening when she reached Galvin House she went to her room, and
there subjected herself to a searching examination in the
looking-glass, she was forced to confess to the paleness of her face
and dark marks beneath her eyes. She explained them by summer in
London, coupled with the dreariness of Arthur Bonsor, M.P., and his
mania for statistics.

"You're human yeast, Patricia!" she murmured to her reflection; "at
least you're paid two-and-a-half guineas a week to try to leaven the
unleavenable, and you mustn't complain if sometimes you get a little
tired. Fretting!" There was indignation in her voice. "What have you
got to fret about?"

With the passage of each day, however, she grew more listless and
weary. She came to dread meal-times, with their irritating chatter and
uninspiring array of faces that she had come almost to dislike. She
was conscious of whisperings and significant looks among her
fellow-boarders. She resented even Gustave's cow-like gaze of
sympathetic anxiety as she declined the food he offered her.

Lady Tanagra and Mr. Triggs never asked her out. Everybody seemed
suddenly to have deserted her. Sometimes she would catch a glimpse of
them in the Park on Sunday morning Once she saw Bowen; but he did not
see her. "The daily round and common task" took on a new and sinister
meaning for her. Sometimes her thoughts would travel on a few years
into the future. What did it hold for her? Instinctively she
shuddered at the loneliness of it all.

One afternoon on her return to Galvin House, Gustave opened the door.
He had evidently been on the watch. His kindly face was beaming with
goodwill.

"Oh, mees!" he cried. "Mees Brent is here."

"Aunt Adelaide!" cried Patricia, her heart sinking. Then seeing the
comical lock of indec