rock-strewn sea. The bathroom which opened
from it was a model of comfort and even luxury. The Marchioness
welcomed him cordially, later on, and Mr. Dane Montague and Mr.
Hartwell seemed very harmless in their ill-chosen country clothes, and
ingratiating almost to the point of fulsomeness. Lady Mary glanced
approvingly at Jacob's tennis flannels.

"I'm sure you'll be far too good for me," she sighed, as she gave him
his coffee. "My racquet's simply horrible, too. It's three years old
and wants restringing badly."

"I hope you won't think it a liberty," Jacob said simply, "but I had
to call at Tate's to get one of mine which I'd had restrung, and I saw
such a delightfully balanced lady's racquet that I ventured to bring
it down. I thought you might play with it, at any rate, if you didn't
feel like doing me the honour of accepting it."

"You dear person!" she exclaimed joyfully. "If father and mother
weren't here, and my mouth weren't full of scone, I believe I should
kiss you. There isn't anything in the world I wanted so much as a Tate
racquet."

"Very thoughtful and kind of Mr. Pratt, I am sure," the Marchioness
echoed graciously.

Jacob was never quite sure as to the meaning of that day, on which he
and Lady Mary were left almost entirely alone, and the others,
starting for an excursion soon after breakfast, did not return until
an hour before dinner. They played tennis, bathed, played tennis
again, lounged in a wonderful corner of a many-hundred-year-old
garden, and afterwards sailed for a couple of hours in a little skiff
which Lady Mary managed with the utmost skill. Sunburnt, tired, but
completely happy, Jacob watched the returning carriages with scarcely
an atom of apprehension.

"I think," he declared, "that this has been one of the happiest days
of my life."

"That is a great deal to say, Mr. Pratt," said Lady Mary.

She seemed suddenly to have lost her high spirits. He looked at her
almost in surprise. A queer little impulse of jealousy crept into his
brain.

"You are tired," he said,--"or is it that you are thinking of some one
else?"

She shook her head.

"I felt a little shiver," she confided. "I don't know why. I loathe
those two men father has here, and I have an idea, somehow, that they
don't like you."

"I have more than an idea about that," he answered half lightly. "I
believe they'd murder me if they could. You'll protect me, won't you,
Lady Mary?"

"I will," she answered quite g