ght?' she said at length.

'Not I,' he replied, sitting down by her side.

He was quick to detect the disturbance in the social atmosphere, and
though he tried to appear unconscious of it, he did not succeed in the
impossible. Moreover, Rose had evidently decided that despite his
presence she would finish what she had begun.

'Very well, father,' she said. 'If you'll let me go at once I'll come
down for two days at Christmas.'

'Yes,' John grumbled, 'that's all very well. But who's to take you? You
can't go alone. And you know perfectly well that I only came back
yesterday.' He recited this fact precisely as though it constituted a
grievance against Rose.

'As if I couldn't go alone!' Rose exclaimed.

'If it's London you're talking about,' Twemlow said, 'I will be going up
to-morrow by the midday flyer, and could look after any lady that
happened to be on that train and would accept my services.' He glanced
pleasantly at Rose.

'Oh, Mr. Twemlow!' the girl murmured. It was a ludicrously inadequate
expression of her profound passionate gratitude to this knight; but she
could say no more.

'But can you be ready, my dear?' Leonora inquired.

'I am ready,' said Rose.

'It's understood then,' Twemlow said later. 'We shall meet at the depot.
I can't stop another moment now. I've got a cab waiting outside.'

Leonora wished to ask him whether, notwithstanding his partial
assurance of the previous evening, his journey would really end at
Euston, or whether he was not taking London _en route_ for New York. But
she could not bring herself to put the question. She hoped that John
might put it; John, however, was taciturn.

'We shall see Rose off to-morrow, of course,' was her last utterance to
Twemlow.

* * * * *

Leonora and her three daughters stood in the crowd on the platform of
Knype railway station, waiting for Arthur Twemlow and for the London
express. John had brought them to the station in the waggonette, had
kissed Rose and purchased her ticket, and had then driven off to a
creditors' meeting at Hanbridge. All the women felt rather mournful amid
that bustle and confusion. Leonora had said to herself again and again
that it was absurd to regard this absence of Rose for a few weeks as a
break in the family existence. Yet the phrase, 'the first break, the
first break,' ran continually in her mind. The gentle sadness of her
mood noticeably affected the girls. It was as though th