e--as bad as you think?"

"Oh, in a month or two."

"Well, we'll talk over it again then. But--don't lose heart. And
remember this, Kenrick. You are as one of ourselves now, and if the
worst comes to the worst, this place is always your home as long as you
like to make it so."

I mumbled out something that was meant to be appreciative, and then he
began to talk about other things. He was rather put out because his
plans on George's account had fallen through. The schools he had been
negotiating with delicately but firmly refused to take the boy.

"I'm coming round to the conclusion that there's no necessity to send
him away at all," he ended up. "The thing has been settled and is now a
thing of the past. I believe he's as safe as you or I."

To this what answer could I make, remembering that the speaker was
nothing if not a man of sound judgment? Yet even the soundest of such
may fall into an error--and then!

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

"THERE WERE TWO LIVES."

"They are late--very late. They ought to be here by now," murmured
Beryl, more to herself than to me, as she came out on the stoep, where I
was seated alone, admiring the splendid moonlight; "they" being her
father and George, who had ridden over to Trask's early in the afternoon
about something, intending to be home by supper-time. Now it was nearly
bedtime, and still there was no sign of them.

"Oh, they'll turn up any minute now," I said. "It's not likely they'll
stay the night at Trask's, I suppose?"

"Not in the least likely. But--I wish they'd come."

Brian was away, Iris too; the latter staying with some people at Fort
Lamport--so that Beryl and I were alone together. But as she dropped
into one of the roomy cane chairs beside me, I could see that she had
hardly an ear for half my conversation, and her face, clearly visible in
the moonlight, wore a strangely anxious and troubled look. The
slightest sound would start her up, listening intently. I watched her
with amazement.

"Why, Beryl," I said. "What on earth is the reason of all this anxiety?
They--all of us--have been out as late as this before?"

"And I have never been as anxious as this before. Quite true. But, do
you believe in instincts, in presentiments, Kenrick?"

"Well, in a way perhaps. But--I hardly know. They are generally to be
traced to overwrought nerves, and that's a complaint I should have
thought would be the last for you to suffer from, Beryl."

"Y