m sorry I spoke that way."

"I knew how you must feel, anyway."

"It seems ungrateful," she murmured. "I love my step-father."

"You've proven that," he remarked with a dry humour that brought the hot
flush to her face again.

"I must have been crazy that day," she said. "It scares me to remember
what I tried to do. ... What a frightful thing -- if I had killed you --
How _can_ you forgive me?"

"How can you forgive _me,_ Eve?"

She turned her head: "I do."

"Entirely?"

"Yes."

He said, -- a slight emotion noticeable in his voice: "Well, I forgave
you before the darned gun exploded in our hands."

"How _could_ you?" she protested.

"I was thinking all the while that you were acting as I'd have acted if
anything threatened _my_ father."

"Were you thinking of _that?_"

"Yes, -- and also how to get hold of you before you shot me." He began
to laugh.

After a moment she turned her head to look at him, and her smile
glimmered, responsive to his amusement. But she shivered slightly, too.

"How about that egg?" he inquired.

"I can get up----"

"Better keep off your feet. What is there in the pantry? You must be
starved."

"I could eat a little before supper time," she admitted. "I forgot to
take my lunch with me this morning. It is still there in the pantry on
the bread box, wrapped up in brown paper, just as I left it----"

She half rose in bed, supported on one arm, her curly brown-gold hair
framing her face:

"-- Two cakes of sugar-milk chocolate in a flat brown packet tied with a
string," she explained, smiling at his amusement.

So he went down to the pantry and discovered the parcel on the bread box
where she had left it that morning before starting for the cache on Owl
Marsh.

He brought it to her, placed both pillows upright behind her, stepped
back gaily to admire the effect. Eve, with her parcel in her hands,
laughed shyly at his comedy.

"Begin on your chocolate," he said. "I'm going back to fix you some
bread and butter and a cup of tea."

When again he had disappeared, the girl, still smiling, began to untie
her packet, unhurriedly, slowly loosening string and wrapping.

Her attention was not fixed on what her slender fingers were about.

She drew from the parcel a flat morocco case with a coat of arms and
crest stamped on it in gold, black, and scarlet.

For a few moments she stared at the object stupidly. The next moment
she heard Stormont's spurred tread on the