-come
back on me. I can't get over it--at least not yet. But I'll never
let it come really between us. And perhaps--some day'--he hesitated
and his voice dropped--'you shall help me--like Verena!'

She clung to him, not knowing what he meant, but fascinated by his
deep voice, and the warm shelter of his arms. He bent down to kiss
her, in the most passionate embrace he had ever given her.

Then he released her, and they both looked at each other with a new
shyness.

'So that's all right!' he said, smiling. 'You see you can't drop me
as easily as you think. I stick! Well, now, you take me as a
pauper--not exactly a pauper--but still--I've got to settle things
with your father, though!'

Beryl proposed that they should go and look for the others.

They went hand in hand.

* * * * *

Sir Henry meanwhile was engaged in the congenial occupation of
inspecting and showing his kitchen gardens. His son Arthur and
Pamela Mannering were following him round the greenhouses, finding
more amusement in the perplexities of Sir Henry's conscience than
interest in the show itself.

'You see they've brought in the chrysanthemums. Just in time! There
was a frost last night,' said Sir Henry, throwing open a door, and
disclosing a greenhouse packed with chrysanthemums in bud.

'My hat--what a show!' said his son.

'Not at all, Arthur, not at all,' said his father, annoyed. 'Not a
third of what we had last year.'

Arthur raised his eyebrows, and behind his father's back he and
Pamela exchanged smiles. The next house showed a couple of elderly
men at work pruning roses intended to flower in February and March.

'This is almost my favourite house,' exclaimed Sir Henry. 'Such a
wonderful result for so little labour!' He strolled on complacently.

'How long does this take you, Grimes?' Arthur inquired discreetly of
one of the gardeners.

'Oh, a good while, Mr. Arthur--what with the pruning, and the
syringing, and the manuring,' said the man addressed, stopping to
wipe his brow, for the day was mild.

Arthur's look darkened a little. He fell into a reverie, while
Pamela was conscious at every step of his tall commanding presence,
of the Military Cross on his khaki breast, and the pleasant,
penetrating eyes under his staff cap. Arthur, she thought, must be
now over thirty. Before his recent wound he had been doing some
special artillery work on the Staff of an Army Corps, and was a very
rising sold