s stillness for some time. This part of the house seemed quite
empty, save for one buzzing fly, which he or Mary had let in. The
little housekeeper was very particular about flies in summer, every
window and chimney-opening being wire-netted, every door labelled with
a printed request to the user to shut it; and his dazed mind occupied
itself with the idea of how this insect would have distressed her if
she had not had so much else to think of. He had an impulse to hunt it,
for her sake, through the green-shadowed space in which it careered in
long tacks with such energy and noise; but, standing up, he was seized
with a stronger impulse to leave the house forthwith, and everything in
it. He wanted liberty to consider his position and further proceedings
before he faced the family.

As he approached the door, it was opened from without. Deb stood on the
threshold, pale, proud, with tight lips and sombre eyes. She bowed to
him as only she could bow to a person she was offended with.

"Would you kindly see my father in his office, Mr Carey?" she inquired,
with stony formality. "He wishes to speak to you."

"Certainly, Miss Deborah," he replied, not daring to preface the words
with even a "How-do-you-do". "I want to see him--I want to see him
particularly."

Deb swept round to lead the way downstairs.

An embarrassing march it was, tandem fashion, through the long passages
of the rambling house. While trying to arrange his thoughts for the
coming interview, Captain Carey studied her imperious back and
shoulders, the haughty poise of her head; and though he was not the one
that had behaved badly, he had never felt so small. At the door of the
morning-room she dismissed him with a jerk of the hand. "You know your
way," said she, and vanished.

"She is more beautiful than ever," was his poignant thought, as he
walked away from her, and from all the glorious life that she
suggested--to such a dull and common doom.

Mr Pennycuick, at first, was a terrible figure, struggling between his
father-fury and his old-gentleman instincts of courtesy to a guest.

"Sir," said he, "I am sorry that I have to speak to you under my own
roof; in another place I could better have expressed what I have to
say--"

But before he could get to the gist of the matter, Mary intervened.

"Miss Keene has some refreshment for Mr Carey in the dining-room," she
said. "And, father, I want, if you please, to have a word with you
first." She had re