me. One was to make me
unaccountably "blue" for the rest of that day. Another was that I
regarded the visits of Worcester and Herbert Bayliss with a different
eye. I speculated foolishly concerning those visits and watched both
young gentlemen more closely.

I did not have to watch the curate long. Suddenly he ceased calling at
the rectory. Not altogether, of course, but he called only occasionally
and his manner toward my "niece" was oddly formal and constrained. She
was very kind to him, kinder than before, I thought, but there was a
difference in their manner. Hephzy, of course, had an explanation ready.

"She's given him his clearance papers," was her way of expressing it.
"She's told him that it's no use so far as he's concerned. Well, I never
did think she cared for him. And that leaves the course clear for the
doctor, doesn't it."

The doctor took advantage of the clear course. His calls and invitations
for rides and tennis and golf were more frequent than ever. She must
have understood; but, being a normal young woman, as well as a very,
very pretty one, she was a bit of a coquette and kept the boy--for,
after all, he was scarcely more than that--at arm's length and in a
state of alternate hope and despair. I shared his varying moods. If he
could not be sure of her feelings toward him, neither could I, and I
found myself wondering, wondering constantly. It was foolish for me
to wonder, of course. Why should I waste time in speculation on that
subject? Why should I care whether she married or not? What difference
did it make to me whom she married? I resolved not to think of her at
all. And that resolution, like so many I had made, amounted to nothing,
for I did think of her constantly.

And then to add a new complication to the already over-complicated
situation, came A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire.

Frances and Herbert Bayliss were scheduled for nine holes of golf on the
Manor House course that morning. I had had no intention of playing. My
projected novel had reached the stage where, plot building completed, I
had really begun the writing. The first chapter was finished and I had
intended beginning the second one that day. But, just as I seated myself
at the desk in the Reverend Cole's study, the young lady appeared and
insisted that the twosome become a threesome, that I leave my "stupid
old papers and pencils" and come for a round on the links. I protested,
of course, but she was in one of her wilful m