s flushed with
the struggle, and she had come up to him before she saw that he was
there.

"Now, that's luck," she said, laughing, as she sat down beside him;
"I've been wanting to see you ever since yesterday afternoon, but you
seemed to have hidden yourself. It doesn't sound a very long time,
does it? But I've something to tell you--rather important."

"What?" He looked at her and suddenly laughed. "What a splendid place
for us to meet--its solitude is almost unreal."

"As to solitude," she said calmly, pointing down the valley. "There's
Tracy Corridor; it will be all over the Club to-night--he's been
watching us for some time"; a long thin youth, his head turned in their
direction, had passed down the footpath towards its ruined chapel, and
was rapidly vanishing in the direction of Pendragon.

"Well--let them," said Harry, shrugging his shoulders. "You don't
mind, do you?"

"Not a bit," she answered lightly. "They've discussed the Bethel
family so frequently and with such vigour that a little more or less
makes no difference whatsoever. Pendragon taboo! we won't dishonour
the sea by such a discussion in its sacred presence."

"What do you want to tell me?" he asked, watching delightedly the
colour of her face, the stray curls that the wind dragged from
discipline and played games with, the curve of her wrist as her hand
lay idly in her lap.

"Oh, it'll keep," she said quickly. "Never mind just yet. Tell me
about yourself--what's happened?"

"How did you know that anything had?" he asked.

"Oh, one can tell," she answered. "Besides, I have felt sure that it
would, things couldn't go on just as they were----" she paused a moment
and then added seriously, "I hope you don't mind my asking? It seems a
little impertinent--but that was part of the compact, wasn't it?"

"Why, of course," he said.

"Because, you know," she went on, "it's really rather absurd. I'm only
twenty-six, and you're--oh! I don't know _how_ old!--anyhow an elderly
widower with a grown-up son; but I'm every bit as old as you are,
really. And I'm sure I shall give you lots of good advice, because
you've no idea what a truly practical person I am. Only sometimes
lately I've wondered whether you've been a little surprised at my--our
flinging ourselves into your arms as we have done. It's like
father--he always goes the whole way in the first minute; but it isn't,
or at any rate it oughtn't to be, like me!"

"You are," he sai