n's impending announcement;
but a glance at the elder lady's unclouded brow showed that he must seek
elsewhere the clue to Owen's taciturnity and his step-mother's concern.
Possibly Anna had found reason to change her own attitude in the matter,
and had made the change known to Owen. But this, again, was negatived by
the fact that, during the afternoon's shooting, young Leath had been in
a mood of almost extravagant expansiveness, and that, from the moment of
his late return to the house till just before dinner, there had been,
to Darrow's certain knowledge, no possibility of a private talk between
himself and his step-mother.

This obscured, if it narrowed, the field of conjecture; and Darrow's
gropings threw him back on the conclusion that he was probably reading
too much significance into the moods of a lad he hardly knew, and who
had been described to him as subject to sudden changes of humour. As to
Anna's fancied perturbation, it might simply be due to the fact that she
had decided to plead Owen's cause the next day, and had perhaps already
had a glimpse of the difficulties awaiting her. But Darrow knew that he
was too deep in his own perplexities to judge the mental state of those
about him. It might be, after all, that the variations he felt in the
currents of communication were caused by his own inward tremor.

Such, at any rate, was the conclusion he had reached when, shortly after
the two ladies left the drawing-room, he bade Owen good-night and went
up to his room. Ever since the rapid self-colloquy which had followed on
his first sight of Sophy Viner, he had known there were other questions
to be faced behind the one immediately confronting him. On the score
of that one, at least, his mind, if not easy, was relieved. He had
done what was possible to reassure the girl, and she had apparently
recognized the sincerity of his intention. He had patched up as decent a
conclusion as he could to an incident that should obviously have had
no sequel; but he had known all along that with the securing of Miss
Viner's peace of mind only a part of his obligation was discharged, and
that with that part his remaining duty was in conflict. It had been his
first business to convince the girl that their secret was safe with
him; but it was far from easy to square this with the equally urgent
obligation of safe-guarding Anna's responsibility toward her child.
Darrow was not much afraid of accidental disclosures. Both he and So