usly to
herself--"I'm not so sure!"

He glanced at her in sudden uneasiness. Was she too going to say, like
Lucy Sorrel, that she did not believe in love? He thought of Angus Reay,
and wondered. She caught his look and smiled.

"I'm not so sure!" she repeated--"There's a great deal talked about
love,--but it often seems as if there was more talk than deed. At least
there is in what is generally called 'love.' I know there's a very real
and beautiful love, like that which I had for my father, and which he
had for me,--that was as near being perfect as anything could be in this
world. But the love I had for the young man to whom I was once engaged
was quite a different thing altogether."

"Of course it was!" said Helmsley--"And quite naturally, too. You loved
your father as a daughter loves--and I suppose you loved the young man
as a sweetheart loves--eh?"

"Sweetheart is a very pretty word,"--she answered, the smile still
lingering about her lips--"It's quite old-fashioned too, and I love
old-fashioned things. But I don't think I loved the young man exactly as
a 'sweetheart.' It all came about in a very haphazard way. He took a
fancy to me, and we used to go long walks together. He hadn't very much
to say for himself--he smoked most of the time. But he was honest and
respectable--and I got rather fond of him--so that when he asked me to
marry him, I thought it would perhaps please father to see me provided
for--and I said yes, without thinking very much about it. Then, when
father failed in business and my man threw me over, I fretted a bit just
for a day or two--mostly I think because we couldn't go any more Sunday
walks together. I was in the early twenties, but now I'm getting on in
the thirties. I know I didn't understand a bit about real love then. It
was just fancy and the habit of seeing the one young man oftener than
others. And, of course, that isn't love."

Helmsley listened to her every word, keenly interested. Surely, if he
guided the conversation skilfully enough, he might now gain some useful
hints which would speed the cause of Angus Reay?

"No--of course that isn't love,"--he echoed--"But what do you take to
_be_ love?--Can you tell me?"

Her eyes filled with a dreamy light, and her lips quivered a little.

"Can I tell you? Not very well, perhaps--but I'll try. Of course it's
all over for me now--and I can only just picture what I think it ought
to be. I never had it. I mean I never had that kind