ready to burst. He added a minute after, "You can run
out and get a little air; and----" here he paused, and the boy stopped
and looked up, knowing and fearing what was coming. "And," repeated
Warrender, a crimson flush coming to his face which had been so pale,
"I'll--go and explain to Lady Markland."

"Oh, if you're in a hurry to go, never mind, Theo! I'll tell mamma."

Warrender looked at Geoff with a blank but angry gaze. "I told you to
run out and play," he said, his voice sounding harsh and strange. "It's
very bright out of doors. It will be better for you."

"And, Theo! what shall I learn for to-morrow?"

"To-morrow!" The child was really frightened by the look Theo gave him:
the sudden fading out of the flush, the hollow look in his eyes. Then he
flung down the book which all the time he had been holding mechanically
in his hand. "Damn to-morrow!" he said.

Geoff's eyes opened wide with amazement and horror. Was Theo going mad?
was that what it meant after all?

CHAPTER XXVII.

A minute after he was in the room where Lady Markland sat with her great
writing table against the light. He did not know how he got there. It
seemed impossible that it could have been by mere walking out of one
room into another in the ordinary mechanical way. She rose up, dark
against the light, when he went in, which was not at all her habit,
but he was not sufficiently self-possessed to be aware of that. She
turned towards him, which perhaps was an involuntary, instinctive
precaution, for against the full daylight in the great window he could
but imperfectly see her features. The precaution was unnecessary. His
eyes were not clear enough to perceive what was before him. He saw his
conception of her, serene in a womanly majesty far above his troubled
state of passion, and was quite incapable of perceiving the sympathetic
trouble in her face. She held out her hand to him before he could
say anything, and said, with a little catch in her breath, "Oh, Mr.
Warrender! I--Geoff--we were not sure whether we should see you to-day."

This was a perfectly unintentional speech and quite uncalled for; for
nobody could be more regular, more punctual, than Warrender. It was the
first thing she could find to say.

"Did you think I could stay away?" he asked, in a low and hurried tone,
which was not at all the beginning he had intended. Then he added, "But
I have given Geoff a holiday, if you can accord me a little time,--if I
may s