hief offender."

And walking across to her, he stooped and kissed her. Then he beckoned
to Ettie to do the same. Very shyly the girl ventured; very stoically
the victim, submitted. Whereupon, Bobbie subsided, sitting cross-legged
on the floor, and a violent quarrel began immediately between him and
Lady Niton on the subject of the part of London in which he and Ettie
were to live. Fiercely the conflict waxed and waned, while the young
girl's soft irrepressible laughter filled up all the gaps and like a
rushing stream carried away the detritus--the tempers and rancors and
scorns--left by former convulsions.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, Diana and Sir James paced the garden. He saw that she was
silent and absent-minded, and guessed uneasily at the cause. It was
impossible that any woman of her type, who had gone through the
experience that she had, should remain unmoved by the accounts now
current as to Oliver Marsham's state.

As they returned across the lawn to the house the two lovers came out to
meet them. Sir James saw the look with which Diana watched them coming.
It seemed to him one of the sweetest and one of the most piteous he had
ever seen on a human face.

"I shall descend upon you next week," said Lady Niton abruptly, as Diana
made her farewells. "I shall be at Tallyn."

Diana did not reply. The little _fiancee_ insisted on the right to take
her to her pony-carriage, and kissed her tenderly before she let her go.
Diana had already become as a sister to her and Bobbie, trusted in their
secrets and advising in their affairs.

Lady Niton, standing by Sir James, looked after her.

"Well, there's only one thing in the world that girl wants; and I
suppose nobody in their senses ought to help her to it."

"What do you mean?"

She murmured a few words in his ear.

"Not a bit of it!" said Sir James, violently. "I forbid it. Don't you go
and put anything of the sort into her head. The young man I mean her to
marry comes back from Nigeria this very day."

"She won't marry him!"

"We shall see."

* * * * *

Diana drove home through lanes suffused with sunset and rich with
autumn. There had been much rain through September, and the deluged
earth steamed under the return of the sun. Mists were rising from the
stubbles, and wrapping the woods in sleep and purple. To her the beauty
of it all was of a mask or pageant--seen from a distance across a plain