his safety and indulging another on the subject of his wet
feet. A smile of tender amusement visited his lips as he took hold of
the door-handle. Exactly as he touched it, the key on the other side
turned. The lock had been stiff, but it had shot out in the nick of
time, and he found himself brought up short in his impulsive career and
hurtling against a solid barrier. He knocked, but no one answered. He
could have fancied he heard panting breaths on the other side of the
ill-fitting door.

"Mayn't I come in, darling?" he asked, gently, but with a shade of
reproach in his voice.

"No, you can't," returned Milly's voice; hers, but with an accent of
coldness and decision in it which struck strangely on his ear. He
paused, bewildered. Then he remembered how often he had read that women
were capricious, unaccountable creatures. Milly had made him forget
that. Her attitude towards him had been one of unvarying gentleness and
devotion. Vaguely he felt that there was a kind of feminine charm in
this sudden burst of coldness, almost indifference.

"Is anything the matter, dear?" he asked. "Aren't you well?"

"Quite well, thank you," came the curt voice through the door. Then
after a minute's hesitation: "What do you want?"

Ian smiled to himself as he answered:

"My feet are wet. I want to change."

He was a delicate man, and if he had a foible which Milly could be said
to execrate, it was that of "sitting in wet feet." He expected the door
to fly open; but it did nothing of the kind. There was not a trace of
anxiety in the grudging voice which replied, after a pause:

"I suppose you want dry shoes and stockings. I'll give them to you if
you'll wait."

He stood bewildered, a little pained, not noticing the noisy opening and
shutting of several ill-fitting drawers in the room. Yet Milly always
put away his things for him and should have known where to find them.
The door opened a chink and the shoes and stockings came flying through
on to the passage floor. He had a natural impulse to use his masculine
strength, to push the door open before she could lock it again, but
fortunately he restrained it. He went down-stairs slowly, shoes and
stockings in hand; threw them down behind the big green stove in the
smoking-room and lighted a meditative pipe. It was evidently a fact that
women were difficult to understand; even Milly was. He had been
uniformly kind and tender to her, and so far she had seemed more than
content wi