sual.

She looked up with a start.

"Oh--I didn't see you, Doctor! Mr. Macnair was with me. Did you wish to
see him?" She could play at the game of carelessness better than he.
"Where is mother?" she added quickly.

"In her room, I think. Esther, are you going to marry Macnair?"

The girl slipped off her second glove, blew gently into its fingers,
smoothed them and laid it with nice care upon the table beside
its fellow.

"I do not know."

He realised with a shock that he had expected an indignant denial.

"You do not love him!"

"No. Not now. He knows that. And I do not expect ever to love him. But
perhaps, after a long while, if I could make him happy--it is so
terrible not to be happy," she finished pathetically.

Callandar could have groaned aloud; the danger was so clear. And how
could he, of all men, warn her. Yet he must try. He came quickly across
to where she stood and compelled her gaze to his.

"Do not make that mistake, Esther! It is fatal. Try to believe that in
spite of--of everything, I am speaking disinterestedly. You are young
and the young hate suffering. You would marry him, out of pity. But I
tell you that no man's happiness comes to him that way. You will have
sacrificed yourself to no purpose. The risk is too awful. Wait. Time is
kind. You will know it, some day. But even though you do not believe it
now--wait. Wait forever, rather than marry a man to whom you cannot give
your heart."

"That is your advice?" She spoke heavily. "You would like some day to
see me marry a man I could--love?"

"Yes, a thousand times yes!"

"I shall think over what you say." She was still gravely controlled but
it was a control which would not last much longer. She glanced around
the empty room with a quick caught breath. "Why are you left all alone?"

"Is a keeper necessary?" Then, ashamed of his irritation and willing to
end a scene which threatened to make things harder for both of them, he
added in his ordinary tone, "I really do not know who is responsible for
such unparalleled neglect. Jane played me to sleep, I fancy. She said
her mother was upstairs but would be down presently. It must be late. I
had better go."

"Wait a moment, I will see if there is any message from mother."

As she left the room her light scarf slipped from her shoulders and fell
softly across his arm. Callandar crushed it passionately to his lips and
then, folding it carefully, laid it beside the gloves upon the table.
E