ll her thoughts had been of two men, the men she
had left in the darkness by the roadside. She blamed herself bitterly
now that she had left them; she trembled to think what might have
happened.

"Helen, if Johnny Everard does come, I wish to speak to him. I have a
good deal to say to him. I want to be alone with him for some time."

"Of course, darling." But there was anxious enquiry in Helen's face.

Surely, surely there had been no quarrel between them? Johnny was not
one to quarrel with anyone, yet it was strange that he had not been here
for so many days, and that this being Sunday still he was not here.

"When he comes," Joan was thinking, "I shall tell him--everything." She
knew she would hate it; she knew that she would feel that in some way
she was lowering herself. It would be a horrible confession for one with
her stubborn pride to have to make. Not of guilt and wrongdoing, but
that such should be ascribed to her.

Helen was watching from the window, her mind filled with worries and
doubts.

A man had turned in by the gates, was walking slowly up the winding
drive.

It was Johnny, of course. Helen saw it all. The car had gone wrong, but
Johnny, not to miss this Sunday, had walked.

"Joan, Johnny is coming," she called out. "He is walking. He--" She
paused; it was not Johnny. She was silent; she stared for a moment. The
man looked familiar, then she knew who it was.

"Joan, it is Mr. Alston," she said quietly. "What does he want here?"
And Helen's voice was filled with suspicion.

"Thank Heaven," Joan thought, "thank Heaven that he is here."

For the first time Hugh Alston knocked for admission on the Starden
door. A score of times he had asked himself, "Shall I go?" And he could
find no answer. He had come at last.

"What can he want? I did not know he was here in Starden. I didn't even
know that he knew where Joan was. I don't understand this business at
all," Helen was thinking.

A servant shewed him in. Joan shook hands with him. Helen did so, under
an air of graciousness which hid a cold hostility. What was this man
doing here? If he was nothing to Joan, and Joan was nothing to him, why
did he come? And how could he be anything to Joan when she was to marry
Johnny?

So this was her home! A fit setting for her loveliness, and yet he knew
of a fitter, of another home where she could shine to even greater
advantage. They talked of commonplace things, hiding their feelings
behind words, wait