sciously, sensible
as he closed the door and, passing between the stumpy pillars, walked up
the long narrow room and stood, his hands behind him, his back to the
pleasantly hissing and crackling fire of driftwood.

"Alone, dear witch?" he said, and, seeing the open letter in her
hand--"Well, what do you make of this proposition?" And yet again, as she
raised serious pondering eyes--"You find it an extensive order?"

"I find it magnificent for him--beautifully as it should be, adequate
and right."

"And for yourself?" Carteret asked, aware of a carefulness in her
language and intrigued by it.

"Magnificent for me, too--though it takes away my breath."

"You must learn to breathe deeper, that's all," he returned, gently
teasing her.

"And who is to teach me to breathe deeper, dear Colonel Sahib," she
quickly, and rather embarrassingly, asked. "Not my father. He'll have
innumerable big things to do and to do them without waste of energy he
must be saved at every point. He must not fritter away strength in
coaching me in my odds and ends of duties, still less in covering up my
silly mistakes."

"Oh! you exaggerate difficulties," he said, looking not at her but at the
fierce yellow and black striped tiger skin at his feet.--Bless the lovely
child, what was she driving at?

Carteret started for Deadham under the impression he had himself
thoroughly in hand, and that all danger of certain inconvenient emotions
was passed. He had lived them down, cast them out. For over two years now
he had given himself to the superintendence of his estate, to county
business, to the regulation of his sister's--happily more
prosperous--affairs, to the shepherding of his two elder nephews in their
respective professions and securing the two younger ones royally good
times during their holidays at home. Throughout the hunting season,
moreover, he rode to hounds on an average of three days a week. Such
healthy sport helps notably to deliver a man from vain desires, by
sending his body cleanly weary to bed and to sleep o' nights.

By such varied activities had Carteret systematically essayed to rid
himself of his somewhat exquisite distemper, and, when coming to Deadham,
honestly believed himself immune, sane and safe. He was proportionately
disturbed by finding the cure of this autumn love-madness less complete
than, fool-like, he had supposed. For it showed disquieting signs of
resurrection even when Damaris, arrayed in the sheen of s