een out West?"

His hostess laughed. "I have stayed down in the plains through the hot
season in stifling cantonments, and I have once or twice been in Indian
cholera camps. Besides, I have seen my husband sitting, haggard and
worn with fever, in his saddle holding back a clamorous crowd that
surged about him half-mad with religious fury. There were Hindus and
Moslems to be kept from flying at each others' throats, and at a
tactless word or sign of wavering either party would have pulled him
down."

"You'll have to forgive me, madam"--and Wyllard's gesture was
deprecatory, though his eyes twinkled. "The notion that we're the only
ones who really work, or, at least, do anything worth while, is rather
a favourite one out West. No doubt it's a delusion. I should have
known that all of us are born like that."

His hostess forgave him readily, if only for the "all of us," which
struck her as especially fortunate. A few minutes later there were
voices in the hall, and then the door opened, and the girl he had met
at the stepping stones came in. She was dressed differently, in
trailing garments which, it seemed to him, became her wonderfully, and
he noticed now the shapely delicacy of her hands and the fine, ivory
pallor of her skin. Then his hostess turned to him.

"I had better present you formally to Miss Ismay," she said. "Agatha,
this is Mr. Wyllard, who I understand has brought you a message from
Canada."

There was no doubt that Wyllard was blankly astonished, and for a
moment the girl was clearly startled, too.

"You!" was all she said.

[Illustration: "'You!' was all she said."

She, however, held her hand out before she turned to speak to Mrs.
Radcliffe, but it was a slight relief to both when somebody announced
that dinner was ready.

Wyllard sat next to his hostess, and was not sorry that he was only
called upon to take part in casual general conversation, though he
fancied once or twice that Miss Ismay was unobtrusively studying him.
It was also nearly an hour after the meal was over when Mrs. Radcliffe
left them alone in her little drawing-room.

"You have, no doubt, a good deal to talk about, and you needn't join us
until you're ready," she said. "The Major always reads the London
papers after dinner."

Agatha sat down in a low chair near the hearth, and it first of all
occurred to Wyllard, who took a place opposite her, that she was,
although of full stature, too delicate and dainty, t