'What pretty flowers you have!' Nan said, just after she had
arrived--the first time, indeed, she went into the dining-room.

'Yes,' Madge answered, 'Captain King sent me flowers once or twice, and
some of them have kept very well. But I wish they wouldn't wire them.'

Nan turned away quickly towards the window, and said nothing.

Then Tom went down to Wiltshire, and was most warmly received at
Kingscourt. Also pretty Mary Coventry, who was still staying in the
house, was kind to this handsome, conceited boy; and he was rather
smitten; but he kept a tight hold on himself.

'No,' he said to himself, 'I'm not going to marry any woman; I know too
much about them.'

He had a royal time of it altogether; but most of all he enjoyed the
quieter days, when he and Frank King went shooting rabbits on the
heath. It was sharp, brisk work in the cold weather, better than
standing in wet ploughed fields outside woods and waiting until both
toes and fingers got benumbed. There was no formality in this
business, and no ladies turning up at lunch, and no heart-breaking when
one missed. Frank King was excessively kind to him. Not caring very
much for shooting himself, he was content to become Mr. Tom's henchman;
and they got on very well together. Further, in the smoking-room at
night these two were thrown on each other's conversation--for old Mr.
King did not smoke--and it was remarkable how interesting Captain King
found his friend's talk. It was mostly about Madge and her sisters;
and Frank King listened eagerly, and always would have Mr. Tom have
another cigarette, while he was busy drawing imaginative pictures, and
convincing himself more and more that Madge was no other than Nan, and
that life had begun again for him, with all sorts of beautiful
possibilities in it. For he could not be blind to the marked favour
that the young lady had shown him; and he had long ceased to have any
fear of the shadowy Hanbury who was skulking somewhere unregarded in
the background.

At length one night Captain Frank, in a burst of confidence, told Mr.
Tom all about it, and asked him to say honestly what he thought the
chances were. Would Lady Beresford have any objection? Would Miss
Margaret consider he had not known her sufficiently long or intimately?
What was Mr. Tom's own opinion?

Mr. Tom flushed uneasily.

'I--well, you see--I keep out of that kind of thing as a rule. Women
have such confounded queer ways. You're sure to