uring the last month to tell me at least that you are
alive.

'You have always been ambiguous, it is true; but I thought I saw
encouragement in your eyes; encouragement certainly was in your eyes,
and who would not have been deluded by them and have believed them
sincere? Yet what tenderness can there be in a heart that can cause me
pain so wilfully!

'There may, of course, be some deliberate scheming on the part of your
relations to intercept our letters; but I cannot think it. I know that
the housekeeper has received a letter from your aunt this very week, in
which she incidentally mentions that all are well, and in the same place
as before. How then can I excuse you?

'Then write, Paula, or at least telegraph, as you proposed. Otherwise I
am resolved to take your silence as a signal to treat your fair words as
wind, and to write to you no more.'

III.

He despatched the letter, and half-an-hour afterwards felt sure that it
would mortally offend her. But he had now reached a state of temporary
indifference, and could contemplate the loss of such a tantalizing
property with reasonable calm.

In the interim of waiting for a reply he was one day walking to Markton,
when, passing Myrtle Villa, he saw Sir William De Stancy ambling about
his garden-path and examining the crocuses that palisaded its edge. Sir
William saw him and asked him to come in. Somerset was in the mood for
any diversion from his own affairs, and they seated themselves by the
drawing-room fire.

'I am much alone now,' said Sir William, 'and if the weather were not
very mild, so that I can get out into the garden every day, I should
feel it a great deal.'

'You allude to your daughter's absence?'

'And my son's. Strange to say, I do not miss her so much as I miss him.
She offers to return at any moment; but I do not wish to deprive her of
the advantages of a little foreign travel with her friend. Always, Mr.
Somerset, give your spare time to foreign countries, especially those
which contrast with your own in topography, language, and art. That's
my advice to all young people of your age. Don't waste your money on
expensive amusements at home. Practise the strictest economy at home, to
have a margin for going abroad.'

Economy, which Sir William had never practised, but to which, after
exhausting all other practices, he now raised an altar, as the Athenians
did to the unknown God, was a topic likely to prolong itself on the
baronet's lip