of their carriage.

"Would you like some relics?" says a voice at her elbow.

Eleanor knows who is speaking before she looks round. Herbert Dallison
stands besides her, holding out a French forage cap, a bullet, and a
rusty sword broken off in the middle.

She seizes them delightedly.

"Thank you, thank you, but please go away," as Philip's figure looms in
sight.

She does not need to ask twice. Herbert Dallison seems to vanish into
thin air.

"You silly child!" cries Philip laughingly, "to spend your money on
those so-called 'relics' manufactured at Birmingham or Brussels to
beguile innocent tourists. A fresh crop of bullets and swords, I'm
told, is sown every year, that you may have the pleasure of seeing them
turned up yourself."

Eleanor smiles a little nervously. She is beginning to wish she had
not taken the presents. What would Philip say if he knew?

He helps her into the carriage with her spoil, the giver following with
his party in the rear.

Eleanor becomes momentarily more conscience-stricken; the sight of the
"relics" are hateful to her.

"I want to throw all this rubbish away," she cries at last. "It will
only be a worry to me."

"Very true," replies her husband.

"I know," a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "Let me shy them out on
the road, and someone will think they have discovered real curiosities."

She stands up in childish glee, casting back a mocking smile at Herbert
Dallison. One by one she flings his gifts from her, with an expressive
look signifying second thoughts are best. He has taken his friends
into his confidence, and is horrified at the hilarious laughter which
breaks from them at Eleanor's act.

"Hang it all," he mutters, "it's beastly ungrateful; can't buy that
sort of rot for nothing."

But he is too proud to stop and recover his property; so a bullet, a
cap, and a sword are left by the wayside like the seed that was not
good, to pass into strange hands.

"Moral," cries Bertie's pal, slapping him on the back, "don't interfere
with honeymoon couples, they're abominably slow. Stick to widows, old
man, for the future."

At the word "widow" Bertie actually blushes. There is more sting in
this light chaff than his comrades suppose, for the vision of a villa
at Richmond with its dark-haired divinity rises between the dust of the
two carriages, soothing his ruffled feelings and drowning Eleanor's
fair form in the seas of forgetfulness.

The honeymoon slips