know Mr. Sorell has taken a
cottage for him at Boar's Hill--above Hinksey?"

Yes, Connie knew. She seemed suddenly on her guard.

"But he can't live alone?" said Nora. "Who on earth's going to look
after him?"

Connie hesitated. Down a side street she perceived the stately front of
Marmion, and at the same moment a tall man emerging from the dusk
crossed the street and entered the Marmion gate. Her heart leapt. No!
Absurd! He and Otto had not arrived yet. But already the Oxford dark,
and the beautiful Oxford distances were peopled for her with visions and
prophecies of hope. The old and famous city, that had seen so much
youth bloom and pass, spoke magic things to her with its wise,
friendly voice.

Aloud, she said--

"You haven't heard? Mr. Falloden's going to live with him."

Nora stopped in stupefaction.

"_What?_"

Connie repeated the information--adding--

"I dare say Mr. Sorell didn't speak of it to you, because--he hates it."

"I suppose it's just a theatrical _coup_," said Nora, passionately, as
they walked on--"to impress the public."

"It isn't!--it isn't anything of the kind. And Otto had only to say no."

"It's ridiculous!--preposterous! They'll clash all day long."

Connie replied with difficulty, as though she had so pondered and
discussed this matter with herself that every opinion about it seemed
equally reasonable.

"I don't think so. Otto wishes it."

"But why--but _why_?" insisted Nora. "Oh, Connie!--as if Douglas
Falloden could look after anybody but himself!"

Then she repented a little. Connie smiled, rather coldly.

"He looked after his father," she said quietly. "I told you all that in
my letters. And you forget how it was--that he and Otto came across each
other again."

Nora warmly declared that she had not forgotten it, but that it did not
seem to her to have anything to do with the extraordinary proposal that
the man more responsible than any one else for the maiming--possibly
for the death--of Otto Radowitz, if all one heard about him were true,
should be now installed as his companion and guardian during these
critical months.

She talked with obvious and rather angry common sense, as one who had
not passed her eighteenth birthday for nothing.

But Connie fell silent. She would not discuss it, and Nora was obliged
to let the subject drop.

* * * * *

Mrs. Hooper, whose pinched face had grown visibly older, received her
husband's