If

coats and red handkerchiefs. I told you only half of it you would understand why I stayed away."

"I understand it perfectly already," said Lady Baby; "in fact I don't understand why you ever came back.”

The mention of the shipwreck had mollified her for an instant, but the models had hardened her again.

"I came back because I knew that you were waiting for me."

"And if you knew, that is to say, if you imagined that I was waiting for you, why did you not claim me sooner! There are posts in the north, I suppose, as well as in the south."

"Yes, there are posts," said Sir Peter, looking for a moment rather guilty; "that is to say, the posts go out, but

"But what? They don't come in?" she asked, with an inquisitorial glance, for she had her suspicions.

"Oh yes, but of course the movements of a yacht are necessarily a little uncertain."

"Oh!" The suspicions she had lately indulged in were confirmed. "I see. You got no letters all these months; you did not know that we had lost our fortune?"

Sir Peter made a movement as though of deprecation, but checked it at once, and answered quietly, "No, I did not know it."

"But you know it now; you know that I am a beggar."

"The term is a little violent for the case," said Sir Peter, still in that light tone with which he had started; "but since you insist, I subscribe to the fact-with reservations."

"And you know that you are rich, very rich; that you have got thirty thousand a-year?"

"Have I I am very glad to hear it. I never could discover that I had more than twenty."

"Answer me: you know that you are rich ?"

"Yes," said Sir Peter, "I am not a fool; I know that I have plenty of money."

"Well, that is all; there it is!" she drew a long breath and eyed him firmly.

Sir Peter returned her gaze for a minute in silence.

"I am afraid I must be a little dense to-day," he remarked presently, "but I don't see that it is there. Would you mind explaining?"

"You don't see it yet? You still imagine that I could be base enough to accept you on those terms?"

"Which terms? I am making no terms."

"You don't see that the fact of your having all the money and I having none, makes it quite impossible that we should marry?"

Sir Peter appeared to reflect for an instant, then he shook his head. "Pardon my stupidity; but I don't see it. If neither of us had any money it might perhaps be more difficult to marry, but as it happens

"When did you get the first news of our misfortune?" she interrupted..

"To-day-this morning, as soon as I reached London. I should have got it two days ago if I had not been detained at Portsmouth."

"And to-day, therefore, you rush off, without even changing your coat, without even brushing your hair, I do believe, in order to claim the renewal of an engagement which you did consider broken, which you were content to have at an end, until you heard that I was a beggar, and there

fore considered yourself bound in honour to put your fortune at my feet."

Sir Peter laughed-he could not help it. "Is that out of the last novel?" he asked, glancing rather vindictively at the volume which she still held in her hand.

"Enough," she said, turning; "what is the use of prolonging this? I know what you have come for. I knew that you would come, but I can accept no sacrifice and take no charity. And now, let me go,-let me go, or go yourself."

He did not move, and Lady Baby, with a sort of desperate feeling that she must escape while her pride was screwed to this pitch, made a hasty step towards the door, but before she had reached it Sir Peter had walked past her and had put his shoulders against it.

"Yes, Lady Baby," he said gravely, "enough of this. I think we have both had quite enough of this pointless comedy. I have been silent long enough, passive long enough; but there are limits to every mortal thing on earth."

"Will you let me pass?" she panted.

"One moment,—yes, I will let you pass if you command it; but I warn you first that what I have to say shall be said, if not to-day, then to-morrow, if not to-morrow, then the day after. If you prefer it I shall speak in the presence of your father, of your sisters, of anybody whom you care to choose as witnesses; but speak I shall have rights,-I insist on being heard."

I

His whole aspect was changed. He had come to this interview, as Lady Baby had guessed, straight from the news of the Bevans' misfortune. It was Nicky who had

conveyed to him the news, not personally nor even directly, for fear of his father-in-law; but Nicky had a certain coarse cunning of his own, and he had found means, at the cost of many ink-blots and more swearing, to frame a little note to Sir Peter, which had been lying in London pending his arrival for some weeks past, and which, while ostentatiously devoted to the question of some desirable carriage-horses, yet contained a clumsily casual but unmistakable allusion to the family ruin. Upon the reading of this note Sir Peter, horrified at the aspect which his silence must have worn, had started instantly for Gullyscoombe. The idea that there might be difficulties with Lady Baby had not occurred to him in any distinct shape; he had gone down as a matter of course, without any plan of action beyond the almost uncon scious determination to treat the engagement as though having all this time been not in a state of annihilation but only of suspense, and to ignore, as far as possible, the existence of new circumstances, even at the risk of appearing cool in his condolences. That tone of half-tender banter in which he had begun had been adopted more by instinct than by prearranged resolve.

But now he dropped that tone; there was nothing playful nor even tender in the face of the man who barred Lady. Baby's passage with his shoulders against the door. She had never seen him like this, and she stood staring; and at the same time it struck her that she had never seen him look so handsome as now, with his brown hair tossed about his temples, and the careless ease of his habitual look turned to a grave questioning glance. Sun and wind had somewhat darkened his skin.

except where the white forehead showed precisely how low the cap had been worn.

"Will you hear me now or later?" he asked. "Will you sit down, or shall I open the door for you?"

"I will hear you now.

"So much the better," said Sir Peter; and leaving the door, he took up his position opposite to her. "I don't think I shall have to keep you long. I don't think that the strange obstinacy by which you appear to be possessed (pardon me for plain speaking) can stand very long in the face of common-sense. Do you remember how our acquaintance began? It began by your laughing at me."

Laughing at you?" she repeated. Somehow it did not seem possible now.

"Yes, it was so; but I am bound to say that you did not laugh for long. In spite of yourself, you found out that a man may possibly be a man without having ever shot a grouse or mastered a vicious horse. So far well. Then followed our engagement, but after this came the wrong turn. You wanted demonstration, and I was not demonstrative. You had always got everything that you wanted, and therefore you insisted upon getting this also, and when you found that you did not get it you proceeded to treat me as you had treated your toys in the nursery. I did not know you ten years ago, Lady Baby, but I will be bound that your dolls had a bad time of it then. My experience was theirs; you were not satisfied with the love I gave you, or with the expression of it. You wanted to see the inside of the toy, and therefore you stuck pins into me, very long and sharp pins, an order to find out whether I was stuffed

with sawdust or whether I was flesh and blood. Mr Carbury was the longest and the sharpest of those pins which you stuck into me, and because I did not wince you decided for the sawdust. Well, does it give you any. satisfaction to know that you were mistaken that I am stuffed with neither sawdust nor cotton-wool, but am like other men?"

Lady Baby said nothing; she sat biting her lip, unwillingly listening and reluctantly recognising each touch of the picture.

"I felt the pins," went on Sir Peter, "and I was rather curious to see how far you would push your experiments. You pushed them further than I had expected, and you next went on to discover that we did not suit each other., Do you remember?”

She made a sign with her head to say that she remembered.

"You said so in order to be contradicted; I am aware of that; I was aware of it then, but I determined not to contradict you. I said to myself, she wants a fright, let her have it. From Kippendale I went off straight to my yacht, and set sail for the north. I was angry with you, Lady Baby, when I set out, and I made up my mind to frighten you in good earnest, and not to ask to be taken back into favour until you had given me some sign of having recognised your mistake."

"Have I given you any such sign yet?" asked Lady Baby suddenly.

"Not yet, I fear."

"Then why are you asking to be taken back?"

"Because," began Peter, and then stopped short.

"Because we are ruined !" cried Lady Baby, starting from her chair, "" Oh, I see it all! You

"Will you let me speak, please," said Sir Peter, rising also, and, for the first time in her experience of him, looking as though he were about to lose his temper. Her quickness had taken him just a trifle aback, for the inference was not far wrong. "I would have come back long ago, of course, if I had known that you were in trouble of any sort. Do you doubt that? If you doubt that, you must doubt my love altogether. Do you be lieve in my love, Lady Baby?"

In her secret heart of hearts she believed in it firmly, but only in her secret heart of hearts. She would not confess it even to herself, far less to him, so she stood obstinately silent.

"You do not? If that were true, then indeed you would be right, and we do not suit each other. But you do not really doubt me, Lady Baby?"

He took her hand again, but she pulled it away with a start.

("I knew that he would say all that," she reminded herself; "I knew that he would go on like that; Lady Euphrosyne said so.") "It doesn't matter what I believe or don't believe, since I cannot marry you. There may be base souls in the world, but I am not one of them."

"Listen, Lady Baby," said Sir Peter more quickly, for he was beginning to lose his temper in earnest now. "Let us come to a conclusion. When I saw you again to-day, I was for one minute both glad and sorry, sorry because it seemed to me that the child I had known was gone, and glad because I thought that a woman had come in its place. But I see I was mistaken; the child is still here, the same, almost the same as ever.

"But there does exist another reason," she broke out, "a most particular reason." Before her mind's eye there had again arisen the picture of that rose-coloured drawing-room and that blotted document, now in Lady Euphrosyne's keeping. Perhaps it was the scent of sandal-wood which had conjured up the picture once more, for on the very table beside her there stood some of the sandalwood boxes which had come from Kippendale. In this minute they smelt in her nostrils like incense, the incense that has been burnt upon an altar of sacrifice.

"Another reason?" repeated Sir Peter, slowly-"you tell me that there is another reason which stands between us?"

"Yes, a most particular reason." "And you cannot name it?"

She hesitated for an instant. "No, I do not choose to name it."

He gave her a scrutinising glance and then turned his face to the window. Up to this point he had felt quite confident, he had been so sure that her heart was his. The mention of this "particular reason was the first real check. Penetrated as he was by the flimsiness of her highstrung arguments, it struck him now as so very probable that some particular reason existed behind it all. Straight upon this idea came the unavoidable question, the question which at those junctures presents itself to the least suspicious and most confident of men.

"Lady Baby," he said quickly, "tell me only one thing-has any one, has any other man got anything to do with this particular

reason?"

"I-I can tell you nothing."

He looked at her more keenly. "Are you trying to make me jealous?" he asked with a rather faint smile. "You tried that once before: take care, Lady Baby-you have enough to answer for already. By the way," he added abruptly, "what is Carbury doing here?" "He is she began, and then broke off with a start. No-whatever happened, his presence must not be betrayed; that would be base, that would be mean;-in the excess of her remorse Lady Baby felt that it would be so. Had he not already reproached her with making him ridiculous? And how much greater would the absurdity of the position be were his new

quest known ?

"Have you scen

him?" she asked anxiously.

"I have not seen him, but I have caught a glimpse of the inseparable Williams, which means of course that Carbury is here. What is he here for?"

"Nothing; how can I tell? I don't know: I didn't know he was here; that is to say, yes—I did.” "You know and you did not know-how am I to understand that?"

"Any way you will; I can't say anything more. Leave me, Sir Peter," she added in evident distress, "please leave me at once." If he did not leave her at once she felt certain that the whole secret would be out, for she was beginning to lose her head.

Then he left her, but he went with the germ of an idea in his mind, and, unknown to himself, that germ was striking root.