drawing-room. She was fond of Johnny
Everard and his sister. This dark-faced girl she did not know, though
she had heard of her. And now she looked at her with interest. It was an
interesting face, such a face as one does not ordinarily see.

"One day, if she lives, she will be a beautiful woman," Helen thought.
"To-day she is a gawky, passionate, ill-disciplined child; and I am
afraid, terribly afraid, she is very much in love with that great,
cheery, good-looking nephew of mine."

"Come," she said, "Joan is in the garden. I promised that when you came
I would take you to her. You have heard about her of course?" Helen
added to John.

"Only a little, that she is an heiress, and has come into Starden."

"She was very poor, poor child, and I think she had a hard and bitter
time of it. Then the wheel of fortune took a turn. Her uncle died, and
left her Starden and a great deal of money. So here she is."

Helen felt a hand grip her arm, and turned to look down into a thin
face, in which burned a pair of passionate eyes.

"Is she--pretty?" the girl asked.

"I think," Helen said slowly, "that she is the most beautiful woman I
have ever seen."

Unlike his usual self, John Everard was very silent and thoughtful as he
drove home later that evening. Helen had said that Joan Meredyth was the
most beautiful woman she had ever seen. He agreed with her
whole-heartedly. She had received him and Ellice kindly, yet without
much warmth, and now as he drove home in the light of the setting sun
Johnny Everard was thinking about this girl, going over all that had
happened, remembering every word almost that she had uttered.

"She is very beautiful, wonderfully beautiful," he thought. And perhaps
he uttered his thoughts aloud, for the girl, as silent as himself, who
sat beside him, started and looked up into his face, and into the
passionate, rebellious heart of her there came a sudden wave of jealous
hatred.

CHAPTER XVII

UNREST

Lady Linden patted the girl's small white hand.

"Yes, child," she said comfortably, "Colonel Arundel and I had a nice
long talk last night, and you may guess what it was about. He and I were
boy and girl together, there's no better blood in the kingdom than the
Arundel's--what was I saying? Oh yes, we decided that it would be a good
plan to have a two years' engagement, or better still, none for eighteen
months, and then a six months' engagement. During that time Tom can
study modern sci