th. To find that he had drifted out of her
life, and that the wealth remained, was the most blissful state of
affairs that she could have desired.

Slowly spring merged into summer, and more and more did it seem to Nan
that the past was nothing but a dream. She returned to her customary
pursuits with all her old zest, rising early in the mornings to follow
the otter-hounds, tramping for miles, and returning ravenous to
breakfast; or, again, spending hours in the saddle, and only returning
at her own sweet will. Colonel Everard's household was one of absolute
freedom. No one ever questioned the doings of anyone else. From the
earliest they had one and all been accustomed to go their own way. And
Nan was the freest and most independent of them all.

It was on a splendid morning in July that as she splashed along the
marshy edge of a stream in hot pursuit of one of the biggest otters she
had ever seen, a well-known voice accosted her by name.

"Hullo, Nan! I wondered if you would turn up when they told me you were
still at home."

Nan whisked round, up to her ankles in mud.

"Hullo, Jerry, it's you, is it?" was her unceremonious reply. "Pleased to
see you, my boy. But don't talk to me now. I can't think of anything but
business."

She was off with the words, not waiting to shake hands. But Jerry Lister
was not in the least discouraged by this treatment. He was accustomed to
Nan and all her ways.

He pounded after her along the bank and joined her as a matter of course.
A straight, good-looking youth was Jerry, as wild and headstrong as Nan
herself. He was the grand-nephew of old Squire Grimshaw, Colonel
Everard's special crony, and he and Nan had been chums from their
childhood. He was only a year older than she, and in many respects he was
her junior. "I say, you are all right again?" was his first question,
when the otter allowed them a little breathing-space. "I was awfully
sorry to hear about your accident, you know, but awfully glad, too, in a
way. By Jove, I don't think I could have spent the Long here, with you in
South Africa! What ever possessed you to go and marry a Boer, Nan?"

"Don't be an idiot!" said Nan sharply. "He isn't anything of the sort."

Jerry accepted the correction with a boyish grimace.

"I'm coming to call on you to-morrow, Mrs. Cradock," he announced.

Nan coloured angrily.

"You needn't trouble yourself," she returned. "I don't receive callers."

But Jerry was not to be shaken of