t--clean through and through!"

"Yes, I know he is, and--and oh, I do know it, Hugh, and it isn't Tom's
fault!"

"Your aunt's been worrying you?"

"No, it is not that--oh, it is nothing, nothing in the world. It is only
that I am a--a--little fool, an ungrateful, silly, little fool!"

And Hugh was frankly puzzled.

"You're going to be as happy as the day is long, little girl," he said.
"Tom loves you, worships the ground you walk on; I think you're going to
be the happiest girl alive. Dry your tears, dear, and smile as you used
to in the old days!" He stooped over her and pressed a kiss on her
shining hair; and there came to her a mad, passionate longing to lift
her arms and clasp them about his neck and confess all, confess her
stupidity and her blindness and her folly.

"It is you--you are the man I love. It is you I want--you all the time!"
She longed to say it, but did not, and Hugh Alston never knew.

Hurst Dormer looked empty, and seemed silent and dull after Cornbridge.
No place was dull and certainly no place was silent where Lady Linden
was, and coming back to Hurst Dormer, Hugh felt as if he was then
entering into a desert of solitude and silence.

"Everything has been quite all right," said Mrs. Morrisey. "The men have
got on nicely with their work. Lane has taken advantage of your being
away to give the car a thorough overhaul, and--and I think that is all,
sir. There are a few letters waiting for you. I'll get them."

From whom this letter? Whose hand this? He wondered. He had never seen
"Her" writing before, yet instinct told him that this was hers.

Two minutes later Hugh Alston was behaving like a lunatic.

"Mrs. Morrisey! Mrs. Morrisey! When did this letter come?"

"Oh, that one, sir? It came ten days ago--the very day you left, the
same evening."

"Then why--why in the name of Heaven--" he began, and then stopped
himself, for he remembered that he had ordered no letters should be sent
on.

"I hope it is not important, sir?"

"Important!" he said. "Oh no, not at all, nothing important!" Again he
read--

"Because you have placed me in an intolerable position, and have
subjected me to insult and annoyance, past all bearing, I ask you
to meet me in London at the earliest opportunity..."

At the earliest opportunity! And those words had been written eleven
days ago; and she had underscored the word "earliest" three times.
Eleven days ago! "I feel I have a right to appeal to