up at him.

"Now, Tim, I won't be growled at the first minute of my arrival. You can
pour out your grumbles another day. First now, I want to hear all the
news. Remember, I've been vegetating in the country since the beginning
of March!"

She drew him tactfully away from the old sore subject of his enforced
idleness, and, while the car bore them swiftly towards the Durwards'
house on Green Street, she entertained him with a description of the
Selwyn trio.

"I should think your 'Doctor Dick' considers himself damned lucky in
having got you there--seeing that his house seems all at sixes and
sevens," commented Tim rather glumly.

"He does. Oh! I'm quite appreciated, I assure you."

Tim made no reply, but stared out of the window. The car rounded
the corner into Park Lane; in another moment they would reach
their destination. Suddenly he turned to her, his face rather
strained-looking.

"And--the other man? Have you met him yet--at Monkshaven?"

There was no mistaking his meaning. Sara's eyes met his unflinchingly.

"If you mean has any one asked me to marry him--no, Tim. No one has done
me that honour," she answered lightly.

"Thank God!" he muttered below his breath.

Sara looked troubled.

"Haven't you--got over that, yet?" she said, hesitatingly. "I--I hoped
you would, Tim."

"I shall never get over it," he asserted doggedly. "And I shall never
give you up till you are another man's wife."

The quiet intensity of his tones sounded strangely in her ears. This
was a new Tim, not the boyish Tim of former times, but a man with all a
man's steadfast purpose and determination.

She was spared the necessity of reply by the fact that they had reached
their journey's end. The car slid smoothly to a standstill, and almost
simultaneously the house-door opened, and behind the immaculate figure
of the Durwards' butler Sara descried the welcoming faces of Geoffrey
and Elisabeth.

It was good to see them both again--Geoffrey, big and debonair as ever,
his jolly blue eyes beaming at her delightedly, and Elisabeth, still
with that same elusive atmosphere of charm which always seemed to cling
about her like the fragrance of a flower.

They were eager to hear Sara's news, plying her with questions, so that
before the end of her first evening with them they had gleaned a fairly
accurate description of her life at Sunnyside and of the new circle of
friends she had acquired.

But there was one name she refrained from