rebelled, and submitted.

Still there are things--experiments--that even an inexperienced child, a
child "of good will" may venture. All the time that she was talking to
Falloden, a secret expectation, a secret excitement ran through her
inner mind. There was a garden door to her left, across a lawn. Her eyes
were often on it, and her ear listened for the click of the latch.

Meanwhile Falloden talked very frankly of the family circumstances and
his own plans. How changed the tone was since they had discussed the
same things, riding through the Lathom Woods in June! There was little
less self-confidence, perhaps; but the quality of it was not the same.
Instead of alienating, it began to touch and thrill her. And her heart
could not help its sudden tremor when he spoke of wintering "in or near
Oxford." There was apparently a Merton prize fellowship in December on
which his hopes were set, and the first part of his bar examination to
read for, whether he got a fellowship or no.

"And Parliament?" she asked him.

"Yes--that's my aim," he said quietly. "Of course it's the fashion just
now, especially in Oxford, to scoff at politics and the House of
Commons. It's like the 'art-for-arters' in town. As if you could solve
anything by words--or paints!"

"Your father was in the House for some time?"

She bent towards him, as she mentioned his father, with a lovely
unconscious gesture that sent a tremor through him. He seemed to
perceive all that shaken feeling in her mind to which she found it so
impossible to give expression; on which his own action had placed so
strong a curb.

He replied that his father had been in Parliament for some twelve years,
and had been a Tory Whip part of the time. Then he paused, his eyes on
the grass, till he raised them to say abruptly:

"You heard about it all--from Radowitz?"

She nodded.

"He came here that same night." And then suddenly, in the golden light,
he saw her flush vividly. Had she realised that what she had said
implied a good deal?--or might be thought to imply it? Why should
Radowitz take the trouble, after his long and exhausting experience, to
come round by the Scarfedale manor-house?

"It was an awful time for him," he said, his eyes on hers. "It was very
strange that he should be there."

She hesitated. Her lips trembled.

"He was very glad to be there. Only he was sorry--for you."

"You mean he was sorry that I wasn't there sooner--with my father?"

"I thi