ly mean that they don't know
at home?" she asked eagerly.

"They know you have gone to Muriel--you'll be there in half an hour--and
nothing else."

"O Dick, then you won't tell them," she cried, her hand on his sleeve.
"You can't be so cruel as to tell them."

She had the crowded streets to thank for Dick's quick answer, "I'm not
going to tell them. Do, for Heaven's sake, keep quiet."

She leant back against the cushions. She had the giddy feeling of a man
who has slipped on the verge of a great height, and saved himself.

"You'll have plenty to answer for as it is," said Dick, with a short
laugh. "You've run away, though you've only run away to Muriel. You
won't get let down easily."

She was not dismayed at that. The other peril, surmounted, was so
crushingly greater. And there had been reasons for her running away,
even if she had not run away to Mackenzie. She stood by them later and
they helped her to forget Mackenzie's share in the flight. But now she
could only lean back and taste the blessed relief that Dick had given
her.

"Do Walter and Muriel know I am coming?" she asked.

"I sent them a wire from Ganton this morning to say that I should
probably bring you, and they weren't to answer a wire from home, if one
came, till they had heard from me. You've made me stretch my brains
since last night, Cicely. You'd have been pretty well in the ark if it
hadn't been for me."

"You didn't help me for my own sake though," said Cicely.

Both of them spoke as if they were carrying on a conversation about
nothing in particular. Their capacity for disturbing discussion was
exhausted for the time. Cicely felt a faint anticipatory pleasure in
going to Muriel's new house, and Dick said, "This must be Melbury Park.
Funny sort of place to find your relations in!"

But Adelaide Avenue, to which the cabman had been directed, did not
quite bear out the Squire's impressions, nor even the Rector's, of the
dreary suburb; and lying, as it did, behind the miles of shop-fronts,
mean or vulgarly inviting, which they had traversed, and away from the
business of the great railway which gave the name of Melbury Park, its
sole significance to many besides the Squire, it seemed quiet, and even
inviting. It curved between a double row of well-grown limes. Each
house, or pair of houses, had a little garden in front and a bigger one
behind, and most of the houses were of an earlier date than the modern
red brick suburban villa. They