ngrily as he reached it. "You're in one of your
aggravating moods to-night, and it's no use me staying to talk to you."

"Not a bit of use," she assented serenely; and her brother went out,
nearly falling over Tochatti, who was evidently about to seek admission
to her mistress's room.

"Why on earth aren't you in bed, Tochatti?" His inward annoyance made
him speak harshly; but Tochatti apparently bore no resentment.

She murmured something to which he paid scant attention; and then,
standing aside for him to pass her, she quietly entered the room he had
just quitted, and proceeded with her final duties for the night.

CHAPTER VII

For two or three weeks after his meeting with Mrs. Carstairs' brother,
Anstice avoided both Cherry Orchard and Greengates.

From a chance word in the village he had learned that Bruce Cheniston
was prolonging his visit to his sister; and that new and totally
unreasoning jealousy which had assailed Anstice as he saw Cheniston
bending over Iris Wayne at the piano told him with a horrid certainty
that to the girl herself belonged the responsibility for this change in
the young man's plans.

In his calmer moments Anstice could not help admitting the suitability
of a friendship, at least, between the two. Although he had lost much of
his attractive boyishness Cheniston was a good-looking fellow enough;
and there was no denying the fact that he and Miss Wayne were a
well-matched pair so far as youth and vitality and general good looks
went; and yet Anstice could not visualize the pair together without a
fierce, wild pang of jealousy which pierced his heart with an almost
intolerable anguish.

For he wanted Iris Wayne for himself. He loved her; and therein lay
tragedy; for he told himself miserably that he had no right to ask her
to couple her radiant young life with his, already overshadowed by that
past happening in India.

Not only that, but he was already over thirty, she but eighteen; and Sir
Richard Wayne's daughter was only too well provided with this world's
goods, while he, with all his training, all his toil, was even yet a
comparatively poor man, with nothing to offer the girl in exchange for
the luxurious home from which he would fain take her.

On every count he knew himself to be ineligible; and in the same flash
of insight he saw Bruce Cheniston, young, good-looking, distinguished in
his profession, in the receipt of a large salary; and owned to himself,
with that c