we're going to Oxford next Sunday, and I suppose we
shall go to Nuneham, and there will be opportunities for walks, and so
on. Could you possibly take it in hand? She has an immense respect for
you intellectually. If you tell her that you're sure the part won't suit
her, that she won't do herself justice in it; if you could lead the
conversation on to it and try to put her out of love for the scheme
without seeming to have a commission from me in any way, I should be
indeed everlastingly obliged! You wouldn't make a mess of it, as I should
be sure to do. You'd keep your head cool.'

'Well!' said Kendal, laughing, balancing himself on the table facing
Wallace. 'That's a tempting prospect! But if I don't help you out you'll
give in, I know; you're the softest of men, and I don't want you to give
in.'

'Yes, of course I shall give in,' said Wallace, with smiling decision.
'If you don't want me to, suppose you take the responsibility. I've known
you do difficult things before; you manage somehow to get your own way
without offending people.'

'H'm,' said Kendal; 'I don't know whether that's flattering or not.' He
began to walk up and down the room again cogitating. 'I don't mind
trying,' he said at last, 'in a very gingerly way. I can't, of course,
undertake to be brutal. It would be impossible for any one to treat _her_
roughly. But there might be ways of doing it. There's time to think over
the best way of doing it. Supposing, however, she took offence?
Supposing, after Sunday next, she never speaks to either of us again?'

'Oh!' said Wallace, wincing, 'I should give up the play at once if she
really took it to heart. She attaches one to her. I feel towards her as
though she were a sister--only more interesting, because there's the
charm of novelty.'

Kendal smiled. 'Miss Bretherton hasn't got to that yet with me. Sisters,
to my mind, are as interesting as anybody, and more so. But how on earth,
Wallace, have you escaped falling in love with her all this time?'

'Oh, I had enough of that last year,' said Wallace abruptly, rising and
looking for his overcoat, while his face darkened; 'it's an experience I
don't take lightly.'

Kendal was puzzled; then his thoughts quickly put two and two together.
He remembered a young Canadian widow who had been a good deal at Mrs.
Stuart's house the year before; he recalled certain suspicions of his own
about her and his friend--her departure from London and Wallace's long
absenc