t is gone for ever."

And he, leaning back in his chair, watched her pouring out the tea as he
had a few days ago watched another pouring out tea in a London hotel.
The sight of Joan performing that domestic duty had brought to him then
a vision of this same old room, this very old teapot, that his mother
had used. And now, seeing Marjorie here, pouring out the tea, the only
vision, the only remembrance that it brought to him was the memory of
another girl pouring out tea in a London hotel.

"Hugh, have you seen her--Joan?"

He started--started at the sound of the name that was forever in his
thoughts.

"Yes, dear," he said simply, for why should he lie to this child?

"Oh!" she said. "Oh, and--and Hugh, she and you--" She paused, she
held her face down that he might not see it.

"Joan Meredyth," he said slowly, "and I met in Town a few days ago. She
told me then, that she is engaged to be married."

"Oh!" Marjorie said, and her heart leaped with a new-born hope.

"And I," Hugh went on, "am worried and anxious about her."

"Hugh!"

"I can't worry you, little girl. It is nothing in which you could help;
it is my fault, my folly!"

"Mine!" she said.

"No, it is mine. The whole idea was mine; I shoulder the blame of it
all. It has succeeded in what we attempted. You are all right, you and
Tom. I've made a lovely mess of everything else. But that does not
matter so much. What we wanted, we won, eh?" He smiled at her, little
dreaming that she had only won dead-sea fruit.

"Why are you worried and anxious about Joan?"

"I am not going to tell you, dear. I can't very well. Besides, you
couldn't help. You are happy, you are all right. Tom is in high favour
with her ladyship, so that's good, and you--you and Tom are happy, eh?"

"Yes," she said miserably.

"He's a good fellow, Marjorie. Make allowances for him. He'll need 'em,
he's no angel; but he means well, and he's a good clean, honest man, is
Tom Arundel, and you'll be a happy girl when you are his wife; please
God!" he added, and put his hand on her shoulder, and did not notice
that she was weeping silently.

He drove her back to Cornbridge in the moonlight, and left her at the
gates of the Manor House. "Little girl," he said, "in this life there's
a good deal of give and take. Don't expect too much, and don't be hurt
if you don't get everything that you ask for. Remember this--I--I cared
for you very much." "Cared!" she thought. "Cared?" He spoke in t