heart jerked.
Was it congratulations? He had never felt he could write of it to her.)
Aruna; a black-edged one from Thea; and--his heart jerked in quite
another fashion--Rose!

Amazing! What did it mean? She wasn't--going back on things...?

Curiosity--sharpened by a prick of fear--impelled him to open her letter
first. And the moment he had read the opening line, compunction smote
him.

"Roy--my Dear, I couldn't help remembering the ninth. So I feel I
must write and wish you 'many happy returns' of it--happier than
this one--with all my heart. I have worried over you a good deal.
For I'm sure you must have been ill. Do go home soon and be
properly taken care of, by your own people. I'm going in the autumn
with my friend, Mrs Hilton. Some day you will surely find a wife
worthier of you than I would have been. When your good day comes,
let me know and I'll do the same by you. Good luck to you
always.--ROSE."

Roy slipped the note into his pocket and sat staring at the fire, deeply
moved. A vision of her--too alluring for comfort--was flashed upon his
brain. She was confoundedly attractive. She had no end of good points:
but ... with a very big B....

His gaze rested absently on the parcel from his father. What the deuce
could it be? To the imaginative, an unopened parcel never quite loses
its intriguing air of mystery. The shape suggested a picture. His
mother...?

With a luxury of deliberation he cut the strings; removed wrapper after
wrapper to the last layer of tissue....

Then he drew a great breath--and sat spellbound; gazing--endlessly
gazing--at Tara's face:--the wild roses in her cheeks faded a little;
the glory of her hair undimmed; the familiar way it rippled back from
her low, wide brow; a hint of hidden pain about the sensitive lips and
in the hyacinth blue of her eyes. Only his father could have wrought a
vision so appealingly alive. And the effect on Roy was instantaneous ...
overwhelming....

Tara--dearest and loveliest! Of course it was her--always had been, down
in the uttermost depths. The treasure he had been far to seek had
blossomed beside him since the beginning of things: and he, with his
eyes always on the horizon, had missed the one incomparable flower at
his feet....

_Had_ he missed it? Had there ever been a chance? What, precisely, had
she meant by her young, vehement refusal of him? And--if it were not the
dreaded reason--was there sti