reticent
that it frightened me still more. I thought he would lose his reason,
he had just that look on his face. The following day he left us
without a word. He just held both my hands very tightly, and said
thank you with his eyes. Of course I made a fool of myself, and kissed
him and cried over him like a child, which only made matters worse. I
asked him what he intended doing, and he gasped 'Eleanor' under his
breath, and rushed out of the house. We have never seen him since."

"How strange! Then he has entirely vanished out of your lives? I
thought he seemed strangely depressed at the theatre, the evening we
went to the Savoy."

"Ah! that was the night before."

"Yes, he disappointed me. I had heard so much of your charming cousin,
but I suppose the poor fellow had some inkling of it then."

"I never expect to see him again. He was a very sensitive man, and the
curious or condoling looks of acquaintances would have driven him mad.
Nelson says he has left England, yet no one knows where he has gone.
The nice home on Richmond Terrace is broken up, and I have practically
lost a brother. It was a strange ending to his married career."

"That is what comes of marrying beneath you. These people with low
minds----"

Erminie stops her sister-in-law with a deprecating gesture. She is
staunch to Philip, and knows how it would pain him to hear these words.

"I was fond of her," she says simply. "Let us talk of something else."

* * * * *

"I wish we could go up to the source of the Irrawaddy River, where no
white man has ever been," says Eleanor, laying her hand confidingly in
Carol's. "I should not be afraid with you, dear--such a traveller, and
knowing the country so well. How many years is it since you were last
in India?"

"Over seven. How did I drag through them without you?" he replies
tenderly.

"We had a glorious voyage, didn't we? and everybody was so nice to us.
I remember, Carol, how frightened I felt when first you suggested this
long journey, and promised to take me north of Burmah to this strange,
uncivilised village, where I should have to eat nothing but rice, or
shoot my own game. Of course you had been here before, and though it
is so wild and out of the way, there are still some white people to
remind us we are not all savages."

"My dear, you must not call them 'savages,'" he says smiling. "They
are really very nice, though a trifle odd and origin