get the whip hand of him."

"Does she care for him?" said Meadows, bluntly.

Miss Field considered the question, and for the first time Meadows
perceived a grain of seriousness in her expression. But she emerged from
her meditations, smiling as usual.

"She'd be hard hit if anything very bad happened!"

"What could happen?"

"Well, of course they never know whether he won't marry to please
himself--produce somebody impossible!"

"And Lady Dunstable would suffer?"

Miss Field chuckled.

"I really believe you think her a kind of griffin--a stony creature with
a hole where her heart ought to be. Most of her friends do. Rachel, of
course, goes through life assuming that none of the disagreeable things
that happen to other people will ever happen to her. But if they ever
did happen--"

"The very stones would cry out? But hasn't she lost all influence with
the youth?"

"She won't believe it. She's always scheming for him. And when he's not
here she feels so affectionate and so good! And directly he comes--"

"I see! A tragedy--and a common one! Well, in half an hour I shall be
ready for his lordship. Will you arrange it? I must write a letter
first."

Miss Field nodded and departed. Meadows honestly meant to follow her
into the house and write some pressing business letters. But the
sunshine was so delightful, the sight of the empty bench and the
abandoned novel on the other side of the lawn so beguiling, that after
all he turned his lazy steps thither-ward, half ashamed, half amused to
think how well Lady Dunstable had read his character.

The guests had all disappeared. Meadows had the garden to himself, and
all its summer prospect of moor and stream. It was close on noon--a hot
and heavenly day! And again he thought of Doris cooped up in London.
Perhaps, after all, he would get out of that cruise!

Ah! there was the morning train--the midnight express from King's Cross
just arriving in the busy little town lying in the valley at his feet.
He watched it gliding along the valley, and heard the noise of the
brakes. Were any new guests expected by it? he wondered. Hardly! The
Lodge seemed quite full.

* * * * *

Twenty minutes later he threw away the novel impatiently. Midway, the
story had gone to pieces. He rose from his feet, intending this time to
tackle his neglected duties in earnest. As he did so, he heard a motor
climbing the steep drive, and in front of it a lady, wa