es, a dust of confetti, the
closing of a door, and then the purr of a car as Penelope and Ralph,
were borne away on the first stage of that new, untried life into which
they were adventuring together.

Nan's face wore a queer look of strain as she turned back into the
house. Once more the shadow of the future had fallen across her--the
shadow of her marriage with Roger Trenby.

"My dear"--she looked up to meet Lord St. John's kindly gaze. "My
dear, come into the dining-room. A glass of champagne is what you
want. You're overdone."

He poured it out and mechanically Nan lifted it to her lips, then set
it down on the table, untasted, with a hand that shook.

"I don't want it," she said. Then, unevenly: "Uncle, I can't--I can't
ever marry--"

"Drink this," insisted St. John. He held out the champagne once more,
quietly ignoring her stumbling utterance.

Nan pushed the glass aside. The whole of her misery was on the tip of
her tongue.

"Listen Uncle David--you must listen!" she began rather wildly. "I
don't care for Ro--"

"No, my dear. Tell me nothing." He checked the impending confession
hastily. He guessed that it had some hearing upon her marriage with
Trenby. If so, it would be better left unsaid. Just now she was tired
and unstrung; later, she might regret her impulsive confidence. He
wanted to save her from that.

"Don't tell me anything. What's done is done." He paused, then added:
"Don't forget, Nan, a Davenant's word is his bond--always."

She responded to the demand in his voice as a thoroughbred answers to
the touch of the whip. The champagne glass trembled a little in her
fingers, as she took it from him, and clicked against her teeth. She
swallowed the wine and replaced the glass on the table.

"Thank you," she said quietly. But it wasn't the wine for which she
thanked him. She knew, just as he had known, that she had been on the
verge of utter break-down. Her nerves, on edge throughout the whole
marriage ceremony she had just witnessed, had almost given way beneath
the strain, undermining the courage with which she had hitherto faced
the future.

CHAPTER XIX

THE PRICE

A sense of bustle and mild excitement pervaded Trenby Hall. The hounds
were to meet some distance away, and on a hunting morning it invariably
necessitated the services of at least two of the menservants and
possibly those of an observant maid--who had noted where last he had
left his tobacco pou