smiling too. For the life of him
Tancred could not imagine anything fairer, more debonair, nor yet more
just than she.

"If I vex you," he said, "I will hold my tongue. But at least you might
stay. I will promise this--"

But whatever the intended promise may have been it remained
unformulated. In the entrance of the bale-bale Liance had suddenly
appeared.

"It is late, is it not?" Mrs. Lyeth, for countenance sake, inquired.

The girl shrugged her shoulders. A gong in the distance answered in her
stead.

"It _is_ late," Mrs. Lyeth announced. "We had better go in."

She moved from the pavilion, and presently all three reached the house.
The hallway was unlighted, a flicker from the dining-room beyond serving
only to make the darkness more opaque.

"Where is Atcheh?" she asked, and called the "boy" by name.

"There," said Tancred, "let me try to find a match."

He groped down the corridor to his room and in a moment or two returned.
On the way back he passed some one he took to be Liance.

"I could not find one," he exclaimed.

So well as he was able to make out, Mrs. Lyeth had not moved. To his
speech she answered nothing. He advanced a little nearer and tried to
take her hand again, but it eluded him. And in an effort to possess
himself of it he approached nearer still. Her face seemed to be in the
way; for one fleeting second his lips rested on it, then a noise of
hoofs must have alarmed him, for he wheeled like a rat surprised. And
presently, after he had reached his room again, he heard Mrs. Lyeth
welcoming her future husband on the porch.

III.

From his window the next morning Tancred caught a glimpse of Mrs. Lyeth
entering the pavilion beyond. He left the house at once and hastened to
join her; but Liance must have preceded him. When he reached the
pavilion she was already there. On her head was a hat unribboned and
broad of brim, in her hand a basket. She struck Tancred as being more
restless than usual, but the widow was thoroughly at ease. Apparently
the episode in the hallway had not disturbed her in the least. For a few
moments there was a common indulgence in those amiable platitudes of
which the morning hours are prolific, and then Liance stood up.

"If you are going to the coppice, take Mr. Ennever," Mrs. Lyeth
suggested. "He looks bored to death."

"Certainly I will," the girl answered.

Her voice was cordial and her eyes and mouth seemed to invite. Tancred,
however, did not on