business one on the surface only. She
had never meant to use the cheque. She had laid it away among a few
letters, relics, pleasant souvenirs of the summer. To her the affair
had been softened by a delicate hint of intimacy,--the delight he was to
take in something that had once been hers had given her a faint taste
of the pleasure of according pleasure to a man. And this is what he had
done!

The drizzle had turned to fog, through which rain was now pelting the
cliffs; people were returning from the open; a motor-car came whizzing
into the drive, and out of it tumbled Rena and Eileen and the faithful
Pages, the girls irritable and ready for tea, and the boys like a
pair of eager, wagging, setter puppies, pleased with everything and
everybody, utterly oblivious to the sombre repose brooding above the
tea-table.

Their sister calmly refused them the use of her cigarettes. Eileen
presented her pretty shoulder, Rena nearly yawned at them, but,
nothing dampened, they recounted a number of incidents with reciprocal
enthusiasm to Sylvia, who was too inattentive to smile, and to Grace
Ferrall, who smiled the more sweetly through sheer inattention.

Then Alderdene came in, blinking a greeting through his foggy goggles,
sloppy, baggy, heavy shoes wheezing, lingered in the vicinity long
enough to swallow his "peg" and acquire a disdainful opinion of his
shooting from Marion, and then took himself off, leaving the room noisy
with his laugh, which resembled the rattle of a startled kingfisher.

In ones and twos the guests reported as the dusk-curtained fog closed in
on Shotover. Quarrier came, dry as a chip under his rain-coat, but his
silky beard was wet with rain, and moisture powdered his long, soft
eyelashes and white skin; and his flexible, pointed fingers, as he
drew off his gloves, seemed startling in their whiteness through the
gathering gloom.

"I suppose our evening walk is out of the question," he said, standing
by Sylvia, who had nodded a greeting and then turned her head rather
hastily to see who had entered the room. It was Siward, only a vague
shape in the gloom, but perfectly recognisable to her. At the same
moment Marion Page rose leisurely and strolled toward the billiard-room.

"Our walk?" repeated Sylvia absently--"it's raining, you know." Yet only
a day or two ago she had walked to church with Siward through the rain,
the irritated Major feeling obliged to go with them. Her eyes followed
Siward's figure