"Too lazy," he answered.

"Miss Caldegard gone to bed?" asked Randal.

"Looked as if she was coming back--though she did say she was tired."

"Then I'll practise that canon you were showing me. See you again," said
Randal, and went upstairs.

In the passage above he met Amaryllis. The sound of their voices, but
not their words, trickled down to Dick in the hall.

Then she came; and the man, lest he should show in his face the pleasure
that came with her, did not look at the girl until she was at the foot
of the stair; and when he did raise his eyes, it was to find hers
averted, and to see her turn at once to her left and make for the study.
Just as she was disappearing into the narrow corridor, he saw, or
thought that he saw, her white shoulder shaken by a sob without sound.

With an eager instinct he sprang to his feet--and sat down again. If she
wanted his help, she would ask for it.

Almost at once, however, he rose again, unsatisfied and restless; and
hardly knew what he was doing before he found himself at the study door,
and in his ears a sound which told him that he had read her shoulders
correctly.

He went in, closing the door as softly as he had opened it.

Randal had left his shaded lamp burning on the writing-table. And there,
shining head bent over the table and lit by the broad circle of light,
her body shaken with suppressed sobbing, was Amaryllis.

Dick was close to her before he realized that she had not heard his
approach. Gently he touched her arm.

Without starting, she looked round at him, and he saw the tears on her
face.

"Excuse my butting in," he said. "Do tell me what's the matter."

The girl tried to speak and failed.

"I'm a stranger to almost everybody here," he said. "When you're in a
hole, the stranger's about the best man to take troubles to."

Amaryllis shook her head.

"Come, let's see if I can't help," pleaded Dick.

In her mind Amaryllis, as she felt the tender concern of his voice, and
looked up into the brown face above the white shirt-front, was struck
with a consoling sense of protection, and knew that, while he was the
last person she could "take her trouble to," yet his was the sympathy
which would most surely soften, if it could not remove, any misfortune
which could ever befall her.

"I can't--I can't! I wish I could," she said, winking her eyes. "But I'm
going to be good. Please be a dear, Mr. Bellamy, and go back to the
hall. I shall be all right soon."