the expected guest. She stood quietly waiting while her
husband stammered over his incoherent sentences, and then put out her
hand.

"We are very glad to see you," she said, with a quick glance at the
new-comer's face as she spoke.

As they walked together toward the tent, after the first greetings, she
felt his keen eyes upon her before he turned to her husband.

"I'm afraid Mrs. Drayton finds the climate trying?" he asked. "Perhaps
she ought not to have come so far in this heat?"

"Kathie is often pale. You _do_ look white to-day, my dear," he
observed, turning anxiously toward his wife.

"Do I?" she replied. The unsteadiness of her tone was hardly
appreciable, but it was not lost on Broomhurst's quick ears. "Oh, I
don't think so. I _feel_ very well."

"I'll come and see if they've fixed you up all right," said Drayton,
following his companion toward the new tent that had been pitched at
some little distance from the large one.

"We shall see you at dinner then?" Mrs. Drayton observed in reply to
Broomhurst's smile as they parted.

She entered the tent slowly, and, moving up to the table already laid
for dinner, began to rearrange the things upon it in a purposeless,
mechanical fashion.

After a moment she sank down upon a seat opposite the open entrance, and
put her hand to her head.

"What is the matter with me?" she thought, wearily. "All the week I've
been looking forward to seeing this man--_any_ man, _any one_ to take
off the edge of this." She shuddered. Even in thought she hesitated to
analyse the feeling that possessed her. "Well, he's here, and I think I
feel _worse_." Her eyes travelled toward the hills she had been used to
watch at this hour, and rested on them with a vague, unseeing gaze.

"Tired Kathie? A penny for your thoughts, my dear," said her husband,
coming in presently to find her still sitting there.

"I'm thinking what a curious world this is, and what an ironical vein
of humour the gods who look after it must possess," she replied, with a
mirthless laugh, rising as she spoke.

John looked puzzled.

"Funny my having known Broomhurst before, you mean?" he said doubtfully.

"I was fishing down at Lynmouth this time last year," Broomhurst said at
dinner. "You know Lynmouth, Mrs. Drayton? Do you never imagine you hear
the gurgling of the stream? I am tantalised already by the sound of it
rushing through the beautiful green gloom of those woods--_aren't_ they
lovely? And _I_ h