ned the other, with a very meaning
laugh. "A regular high-flyer too. Mrs Earle isn't so fond of her as
she might be, but I expect that young Britisher has put Earle's nose out
of joint in that quarter. They say she's a first-rate coach, though."

"Now, father, you're not to start talking scandal," said Lyn. "I don't
believe there's any harm in Mrs Fenham at all. And she isn't even
pretty."

"Ho-ho! Who's talking scandal now?" laughed her father. "Taking away
another woman's personal appearance, eh, Lyn? By the way, there are
several round there you won't get to agree with you on that head."

"Oh, she's married, then?" said Blachland, though as a matter of fact
the subject did not interest him in the least.

"Has been," returned Bayfield. "She's a widow--a young widow, and with
all due deference to Lyn's opinion, rather a fetching one. Now, isn't
that a whole code of danger-signals in itself? Get out some grog,
little girl," he added, "and then I suppose you'll want to be turning
in."

"Yes, it's time I did," replied Lyn, as she dived into a sideboard in
fulfilment of the last request. "Good night, Mr Blachland. Good
night, old father. Now, you're not to sit filling up Mr Blachland with
all sorts of gossip. Do you hear?"

"All right," with a wink over at his guest. "Good night, my little
one."

Blachland had long ceased to wonder--even if he had done so at first--at
the extraordinary tenderness existing between Bayfield and this child of
his. Cudgel his experience as he would, he could find in it no instance
of a girl anything like this one. Sunny beauty, grace, and the most
perfect refinement, a disposition of rare sweetness, yet withal plenty
of character--why, it would require a combination of the best points of
any half-dozen girls within that experience to make up one Lyn Bayfield,
and then the result would be a failure. To his host he said as much
when they were alone together. The latter warmed up at once.

"Ah, you've noticed that, have you, Blachland? Well, I suppose you
could hardly have been in the house the short time you have without
noticing it. Make allowances for an old fool, but there never was such
a girl as my Lyn--no, never. And--I may lose her any day."

"Great Heavens, Bayfield, surely not! What's wrong? Heart?"

"No--no. Not that way, thank God--by the by, I'm sorry I startled you.
I mean she's bound to marry some day."

"Ah, yes, I see," returned Blachland, r