. Mulholland, did Constance ever lift the
veil, during these months. She was not long in succumbing to the queer
charm of that lovable and shapeless person; and in the little
drawing-room in St. Giles, the girl of twenty would spend winter
evenings, at the feet of her new friend, passing through various stages
of confession; till one night, Mrs. Mulholland lifted the small face,
with her own large hand, and looked mockingly into the brown eyes:

"Out with it, my dear! You are in love with Douglas Falloden!"

Connie said nothing. Her little chin did not withdraw itself, nor did
her eyes drop. But a film of tears rushed into them.

The truth was that in this dark wintry Oxford, and its neighbouring
country, there lurked a magic for Connie which in the high summer pomps
it had never possessed. Once or twice, in the distance of a winding
street--on some football ground in the Parks--in the gallery of St.
Mary's on Sunday, Constance caught sight, herself unseen, of the tall
figure and the curly head. Such glimpses made the fever of her young
life. They meant far more to passion than her occasional meetings with
Falloden at the Boar's Hill cottage. And there were other points of
contact. At the end of November, for instance, came the Merton
Fellowship. Falloden won it, in a brilliant field; and Connie contrived
to know all she wanted to know as to his papers, and his rivals. After
the announcement of his success, she trod on air. Finally she allowed
herself to send him a little note of congratulation--very short and
almost formal. He replied in the same tone.

Two days later, Falloden went over to Paris to see for himself the
condition of the Orpheus, and to arrange for its transport to England.
He was away for nearly a week, and on his return called at once in
Holywell, to report his visit. Nora was with Connie in the drawing-room
when he was announced; and a peremptory look forbade her to slip away.
She sat listening to the conversation.

Was this really Douglas Falloden--this grave, courteous man--without a
trace of the "blood" upon him? He seemed to her years older than he had
been in May, and related, for the first time, to the practical every-day
world. This absorption too in Otto Radowitz and his affairs--incredible!
He and Connie first eagerly discussed certain domestic details of the
cottage--the cook, the food, the draughts, the arrangements to be made
for Otto's open-air treatment which the doctors were now ins