ooked round and said in a low voice: "Betty, I'm dreadfully
worried about Jack. D'you think it's conceivably possible that there's
anything _serious_ between him and Mrs. Crofton?"

Betty hardly knew what to answer. For some days past she had felt quite
sure that there was something between those two. Jack had been so odd, so
unlike himself, and once he had said to her, "Betty, I do wish you'd make
friends with Mrs. Crofton. After all you're my sister ..." and then they
had been, perhaps fortunately, interrupted. But if there was anything
between Jack and the fascinating widow, Rosamund, who was so devoted to
Enid Crofton, knew nothing of it.

"I really can't say," she answered at last, "I've hardly ever felt so
doubtful about anything in my life! Sometimes I think there is, and
sometimes I think there isn't."

"I'm afraid there's no doubt as to what _he_ feels. I happen to know
she's just had a very good offer for The Trellis House--seven guineas a
week for six months. But she seems to have settled in here for good and
all, doesn't she?"

"I wonder if she really has," said Betty. And then she grew a little
pink.

Deep in her heart she had felt quite convinced that Mrs. Crofton had come
to Beechfield for Godfrey Radmore, and for no other reason. Now she
wondered if she had been unjust.

"How I wish she'd stay away _now_, even for a few days longer!" exclaimed
Janet.

At that moment Timmy rushed into the hall, Radmore drove up in his motor,
and in a couple of minutes the three were off--Janet looking after them,
a touch of wistful longing and anxiety in her kind heart.

She had hoped somehow, that Godfrey would persuade Betty to go alone with
him to-day, and she was wondering now whether she could have said a word
to Timmy. Her child was so unlike other little boys. If selfish, he was
very understanding where the few people he cared for were concerned, and
his mother had never known him to give her away.

But the harm, if harm there was, was done now, and for some things she
was not sorry to get rid of Timmy for some hours. There had arisen
between the boy and his eldest half-brother a disagreeable state of
tension. Timmy seemed to take pleasure in teasing Jack, and Jack was
not in the humour to bear even the smallest practical joke just now.

* * * * *

On and on sped the party in the motor, Timmy sitting by his godfather in
front, Betty, in lonely state, behind.

They hadn'