earlier because--well,
because I couldn't, that's all."

"A very lucid explanation, I must say. What is the matter with you,
Geoff? You're not a bit like yourself to-day--is he, Ailsa?"

But Ailsa made no reply. There was none really needed. Geoffrey had
taken hardly any notice, but as if struck with a sudden thought, whipped
out a notebook and began shuffling the pages nervously through his
fingers.

"I'd nearly forgotten, Kathie," he said apologetically; "my mother asked
if you would lend her these books." He handed her the torn leaf with
something scribbled upon it. "Any time will do, but she said you would
have them."

Lady Katharine looked down at the writing, and a wave of colour surged
over her face.

"But----" she commenced.

"I don't want them now; in fact, I can't stop even now, only I just
wanted to know that you were all right."

There was no mistaking the look of adoration on the young man's face,
but she looked at him reproachfully.

"Going back again, so soon!" she said softly, averting her head, while
her lips trembled and her hand clutched painfully on the leaf of the
notebook.

"I'm afraid I must, dear," responded Geoff. Then he turned swiftly to
Cleek, who had been watching the little scene, the peculiar one-sided
smile looping up the corners of his mouth.

"Good-bye, Mr. Barch; pleased to have met you," he said without,
however, coming forward and offering his hand.

"Thanks! same to you; good-bye," replied Cleek, and that same smile was
still on his face when a minute or two later, young Clavering having
taken his departure, Cleek was rejoined by Ailsa Lorne.

"What do you think about it?" she asked abruptly. "What is it that is
wrong? Oh, Mr. Cleek, do you think----"

"I'll be beyond 'thinking' before the morning. I shall know," he
interposed. "Now, show me the way to that ruin, please. I want a word or
two with Mr. Harry Raynor if he is there. Down that path, is it? Thanks
very much." And swinging down from the veranda, he moved away in the
direction indicated.

A brisk two minutes' walk brought him to the picturesque ruin with its
ivy-wrapped walls, its gaping Gothic windows, and its fern-bedded
battlements, so artfully copied that the stones actually seemed to be
crumbling and the plants to have been set there by Nature rather than by
man. Even the appearance of a dried-up moat and a ruined drawbridge was
not wanting to complete the picture and to give an air of genuine
anti