haken hands with her.

Next day this armed but almost friendly neutrality continued.
Roger spent the hours in striding about his acres, planning how to improve
them and curtail expenses here and there. The farm to be sure was
neglected; but here and there he noted improvements, and caught himself
wondering if the credit of them belonged to the old man. He left the
household to his stepmother, and returned to find his meals ready and his
appetite courted by some of his favourite dishes.

At dinner Mrs. Stephen produced and handed to him a sheet of paper.
"I thought it might save trouble," she explained, "if I made out a list of
folks to be invited to the funeral. You understand that I've only put
down those that occurred to me. Please take the list away and strike out
or add any names you choose."

Roger was within an ace of telling her to look after this for herself.
He had forgotten that these invitations were necessary, and the writing of
them would be a nuisance. But he recollected his suspicions, took the
paper, and carried it out into the fields to study it. The list was a
careful one, and almost all the names belonged to neighbours or old family
friends. Half a dozen at most were unfamiliar to him. He pored over
these one by one, but scratched none out. "Let the poor creature invite
them if they're friends of hers," he decided; "'twill be her last
chance." At supper he gave her back the list, and somewhat awkwardly
asked her to send the invitations.

Had he been cleverer in the ways of women, he might still have failed to
read the glint in her eyes as she folded the paper and thrust it into her
bodice.

So the three days passed.

V.

They buried Humphrey Stephen on the morning of the 11th, and if any of the
widow's own friends attended the funeral they forbore to obtrude
themselves during the ceremony or at the breakfast which followed it.
While the guests drank sherry and ate cold chickens in the dining-room,
Mrs. Stephen carried her grief off to her own apartment and left Roger to
do the honours. She descended only when the throng had taken leave.

The room, indeed, when she entered, was empty but for three persons.
Roger and the family attorney--Mr. Jose, of Helleston--stood by one of the
windows in friendly converse, somewhat impatiently eyeing a single belated
guest who was helping himself to more sherry.

"What the devil is _he_ doing here?" asked Mr. Jose, who knew the man.
He tu