he
herself undoubtedly owned to some slight connection, and she gave up all
effort to awaken interest in the slim, weary young man, who looked
half-asleep.

"Mr. Heath ought to be here directly," she said, in her loud, clear
voice. "Draycott, don't forget to ask him to say grace."

If she had got up and taken Coryndon by the shoulders and shaken him,
the effect could not have been more marked and sudden. All the dull
feeling of detachment cleared off at once, and he knew that his senses
were sharp and acute; his bodily fatigue fell away, and as he moved in
his chair his eyes turned towards the door.

"I wish he would hurry," growled Wilder, a prey to the pessimism of the
half-hour before dinner. "He is inexcusably late as it is."

As though his words had summoned the Rev. Francis Heath, footsteps
mounting the staircase followed Wilder's remark, and the clergyman came
into the room. Immediately upon his coming, conversation became general,
and a few moments later the party was seated round a small table kept
for intimate gatherings, and placed in the centre of the large
teak-panelled room. An arrangement of plumbago and maidenhair, and pale
blue shaded candles casting a dim light, carried out the saxe blue
effect that Mrs. Wilder had evolved with the assistance of a ladies'
paper that dealt with "effective and original table decoration."

In spite of Mrs. Wilder's efforts, assisted as they were by Hartley,
conversation flagged for the first two courses. Heath was not exactly
awkward, but he was conscious of the fact that he and Hartley had had an
unpleasant interview, buried by the passing of a few weeks, but by no
means peaceful in its grave. There was just a suggestion of strain in
his manner, and he was evidently carrying through a duty in being there
at all, rather than out for pleasant society.

Coryndon observed him carefully, particularly when he talked to his
hostess. If she was helping to screen him, the clergyman was too honest
not to show some sign of gratitude either in his manner or in his
deep-set eyes, and yet no such indication was evident. Coryndon
disassociated his mind from the history of the case, and saw austerity
flavoured with a near approach to disapproval. Judging by externals, the
Rev. Francis Heath held no very exalted opinion of his hostess.

"She has done nothing for him," he said to himself. "If obligation
exists, it is the other way round," and he proceeded to watch Mrs.
Wilder's ma