he had stumbled blindly against a bar of iron.

"Dick and I had just got to that part, when you opened the door," Rose
went on. "We are afraid--you said yourself that Captain Hannaford was
changed, the last time he came here."

"Only three days ago," George mused aloud. "He didn't look well. But he
said he was all right."

"He would! You know how he hated to talk of himself or anything he felt,
poor fellow. But I thought even then--I guessed----"

"What?"

"That it was a blow to him, hearing of Mary Grant's engagement." As she
said this, Rose carefully did not look at her cousin. She was not at all
anxious about Dick. She knew that he would "get over it," and even
prophesied to herself that his heart would be "caught in the rebound" by
the first very pretty, very nice girl who happened to be thrown with him
in circumstances at all romantic. Mary was not his first love by any
means, and would certainly not be his last; and meanwhile Rose felt that
unconsciously he was enjoying his own jealous pain. Still, she did not
wish to "rub it in." "We both imagined that Captain Hannaford was in
love with Miss Grant," she explained; for one had to explain these
things to George. She often thought it a wonder that he had come down to
earth long enough to fall in love, himself; but when she observed this
to him, he had answered that it was not coming down to earth.

"We were most of us more or less in that condition," Dick remarked
bravely.

"The rest of you have a great deal left to live for, even without her,"
said Rose. "Captain Hannaford hadn't. But I'm thankful they're not
likely, anyhow, to prove that his death was not--an accident."

"They don't go out of their way to prove such things here, ever," Dick
mumbled.

"People will say," Rose pursued, "that there was no motive for
suicide--nothing to worry about. He'd won heaps of money, and seemed
very keen on the villa he'd bought."

"By Jove, I wonder what'll happen to that unlucky villa now!" Carleton
exclaimed. "Somehow, Hannaford didn't seem the sort of chap to bother
about wills and leaving all his affairs nice and tidy in case anything
happened."

"He told me once that he had no people--that he was entirely alone,"
said George. "Still, he must have had friends, friends far more intimate
than those he made here. Even we were no more than acquaintances. He
gave us no confidence."

"I can't imagine his confiding in any one," Rose said. "But--I'm not at
all sure