htened horses in the
park. This is really a very gracious silence."

"Are those two really going to marry?" Lady Cynthia asked, moving her
head lazily in the direction of the disappearing punt.

"I imagine so."

"And you? What are you going to do then?"

"I am planning a long cruise. I telegraphed to Southampton to-day. I
am having my yacht provisioned and prepared. I think I shall go over to
South America."

She was silent for a moment.

"Alone?" she asked presently.

"I am always alone," he answered.

"That is rather a matter of your own choice, is it not?"

"Perhaps so. I have always found it hard to make friends. Enemies seem
to be more in my line."

"I have not found it difficult to become your friend," she reminded him.

"You are one of my few successes," he replied.

She leaned back with half-closed eyes. There was nothing new about their
environment--the clusters of roses, the perfume of the lilies in
the rock garden, the even sweeter fragrance of the trim border of
mignonette. Away in the distance, the night was made momentarily ugly by
the sound of a gramophone on a passing launch, yet this discordant
note seemed only to bring the perfection of present things closer. Back
across the velvety lawn, through the feathery strips of foliage, the
lights of The Sanctuary, shaded and subdued, were dimly visible. The
dining-table under the cedar-tree had already been cleared. Hedges,
newly arrived from town to play the major domo, was putting the
finishing touches to a little array of cool drinks. And beyond, dimly
seen but always there, the wall. She turned to him suddenly.

"You build a wall around your life," she said, "like the wall which
encircles your mystery house. Last night I thought that I could see a
little way over the top. To-night you are different."

"If I am different," he answered quietly, "it is because, for the first
time for many years, I have found myself wondering whether the life I
had planned for myself, the things which I had planned should make life
for me, are the best. I have had doubts--perhaps I might say regrets."

"I should like to go to South America," Lady Cynthia declared softly.

He finished the cigarette which he was smoking and deliberately threw
away the stump. Then he turned and looked at her. His face seemed harder
than ever, clean-cut, the face of a man able to defy Fate, but she saw
something in his eyes which she had never seen before.

"Dear child," he sa