f prey.

She felt reluctant to go away and leave things altogether to chance, and
finally, unable to come to any decision, she carried Elisabeth's letter
down to Selwyn's study and explained the position.

His face clouded over at the prospect of her departure.

"We shall miss you abominably," he declared. "But of
course"--ruefully--"I can quite understand Mrs. Durward's wanting you
to go back to them for a time, and I suppose we must resign ourselves to
being unselfish. Only you must promise to come back again--you mustn't
desert us altogether."

She laughed.

"You needn't be afraid of that. I shall turn up again like the
proverbial bad penny."

"All the same, make it a promise," he urged.

"I promise, then, you distrustful man! But about Molly?"

"I don't think you need worry about her." Selwyn laughed a little. "The
sudden accession to wealth is accounted for. It seems that she has sold
a picture."

"Oh! So that's the explanation, is it?" Sara felt unaccountably
relieved.

"Yes--though goodness knows how she has beguiled any one into buying one
of her daubs!"

"Oh, they're quite good, really, Doctor Dick. It's only that Futurist
Art doesn't appeal to you."

"Not exactly! She showed me one of her paintings the other day. It
looked like a bad motor-bus accident in a crowded street, and she told
me that it represented the physical atmosphere of a woman who had just
been jilted."

Sara laughed suddenly and hysterically.

"How--how awfully funny!" she said in an odd, choked voice. Then,
fearful of losing her self-command, she added hastily: "I'll write and
tell Elisabeth that I'll come, then." And fled out of the room.

CHAPTER XIV

ELISABETH INTERVENES

As Sara stepped out of the train at Paddington, the first person upon
whom her eyes alighted was Tim Durward. He hastened up to her.

"Tim!" she exclaimed delightedly. "How dear of you to come and meet me!"

"Didn't you expect I should?" He was holding her hand and joyfully
pump-handling it up and down as though he would never let it go, while
the glad light in his eyes would indubitably have betrayed him to any
passer-by who had chanced to glance in his direction.

Sara coloured faintly and withdrew her hands from his eager clasp.

"Oh, well, you might conceivably have had something else to do," she
returned evasively.

For an instant the blue eyes clouded.

"I never had anything to do," he said shortly. "You know that."

She laughed