d blandly--putting more sugar
in her tea--at which Michael's eyebrows raised themselves in a whimsical
way--back had rushed to him the recollection that on the only occasion
they had ever drunk tea together before, she had said that she liked
"lumps and lumps of it!"

"You probably know England?" he hazarded politely.

"Very little. I was once there for a month when I was a child; we went
to see Windermere and the Lakes."

"You got no further north? That was a pity, our country is most
beautiful--but it is not too late--you may go there yet some day."

"Who knows?" and she laughed gaily--she had to allow herself some
outlet, she felt she would otherwise have screamed.

Michael looked away out to sea and he told himself he must not tease her
any more. She was astonishingly game--so astonishingly game that but for
the name "Howard" he could have almost believed that this young woman
was his Sabine's double--but he remembered now that she had said she was
going to call herself Mrs. Howard because otherwise she would not be
able to "have any fun!"

He had never recollected it since, not even when Henry had told him the
lady of his heart was called Howard--obscured by his friend's assertion
that her husband was an American, he had not for an instant suspected
the least connection with himself.

Until he could find out the meaning of all this comedy, he must not let
Henry have an idea that there was anything underneath; and then with a
pang of mortification and pain he remembered his promise to Henry--and
he clenched his hands in his coat pockets, he was indeed tied and bound.

Sabine for her part felt she could bear the situation no longer; she
must be alone--so on the plea of letters to write, she dismissed them
with Madame Imogen to show them to their rooms in the other part of the
house which was connected to this, her two great turrets and middle
immense room, by a passage which went along from the turret which
contained her bedroom.

"You won't mind, perhaps, dining at half past seven?" she said as she
paused at her door, "because our good Cure, Pere Anselme is coming, and
he hates to sit up late."

And with the corner of his eye, Michael saw that before he hurried after
him, Henry had bent and surreptitiously kissed his hostess' hand--and a
sudden blinding, unreasoning rage shook him as he stalked on to his
allotted apartment.

CHAPTER X

Sabine decided to be a little late for dinner--three minut