carriage of the head, a set of the lips which seemed to send
forth an unspoken warning, "Until now my heart has lain bare before you,
but to-day there has entered into it something so intimate, so sacred,
that it cannot be revealed to any human gaze. _Touch me not_!" And
Vanna understood, and was silent.

Robert Gloucester came back to dinner and sat at the head of the table
opposite Miggles, the two girls seated one on either side. A bowl of
roses stood in the centre of the table; roses twined round the framework
of the opened window; tiny sprays of roses wandered over the muslin of
Jean's gown. They talked of books, of pictures, of foreign lands, of
things extraordinary, and things prosaic. When Robert recounted
experiences abroad, the two girls questioned him as to scenery and
environment, and Miggles wished to know what he had had to eat, and if
there was any means of drying his clothes.

Gloucester also entered into details about his business life, and the
failure of his investments, explaining his present monetary position
with an incredible frankness.

"It seemed an awfully good thing, perfectly sound, but it came a jolly
big crash. I was fortunate to get out of it as well as I did. I
haven't been fortunate in my speculations. Between them I've dropped
almost all my capital. I have a share or two in a bank paying rattling
good interest, and the firm pay me a fair salary, and that's all that is
left."

"Oh, we know you don't mean _that_," laughed Miggles easily. "It will
all go on quite nicely, I am sure, and you will be settling down and
marrying, of course."

"Of course," said Robert Gloucester.

There was something so exquisitely unusual about his frank avowal of
poverty that Vanna had hard work to keep a straight face. What to
another man would have been a secret between himself and his banker
weighed so heavily on Robert Gloucester's candid soul that he must needs
blurt it out on the first possible occasion. Vanna knew intuitively the
exact workings of his mind: he had come down to Seacliff to woo Jean for
his wife. Jean must know from the beginning exactly what he had to
offer; not for a single evening could she be allowed to think of him in
a setting which did not exist. "He had not been lucky in his
speculations." Unnecessary explanation! It was from guileless natures
such as his that the fraudulent made their hoards. The national savings
bank would be the only safe resting-place f