ame hotel as Lenox at Zermatt. Then one morning he disappeared; and,
as she had taken rather a fancy to him, she tried to find out what had
become of him. After a good deal of questioning, it transpired that he
had been seen coming out of the English church with a lady; and further
inquiry revealed the fact that an officer named Lenox had been quietly
married there the day before. Naturally, she scented a romance, and
was keen to know more. But he seemed to have vanished outright. Then
ten days later she met him on the station platform, travelling alone,
and obviously down on his luck. He told her he was off to join his
battery in India: nothing more. Problem: What, in the name of mystery,
had he done with the lady?"

At that Quita rose abruptly, her cheeks on fire, her whole frame tense
with suppressed agitation.

"Oh, stop--stop. I can't stand any more!" she protested, in a
smothered voice; and at once Garth was beside her, contrite and amazed.

"Miss Maurice--what have I said to upset you so?"

"It's not your fault. You couldn't help it," she answered, without
looking up. "But--you were telling me my own story!"

"Good Lord! Then--it was _you_?"

"Don't say any more, please. I never meant to speak; only--one had to
stop you--somehow. It's time we went back to the others now. I am
sure you must be wanting your breakfast. And remember"--she faced him
at last, with brave deliberation--"I trust you, as a gentleman, never
to speak of this again--to me, or to any one else."

And Garth bowed his head, and followed her, in a bewildered silence.

CHAPTER V.

"He that getteth a wife beginneth a possession; a help like unto
himself, and a pillar of rest."--_Ecclesiasticus_.

Eldred Lenox stood alone in the Desmonds' diminutive drawing-room,
patiently impatient for companionship more responsive than that of cane
chairs and tables, pictures and a piano. Yet the room itself, with its
atmosphere of peace and refinement, gave him a foretaste of the
restfuluess that made Honor Desmond's companionship a growing necessity
to this man, whose heart and brain were in a state of civil war. It
was filled with afternoon sunlight, with the faint, clean fragrance of
violets, wild roses, and maiden-hair fern, and its emptiness was
informed and pervaded by countless suggestions of a woman's presence; a
woman versed in that finest of all fine arts, the beautifying of daily
life.

In this era of hotels, clubs,