ve Mr Melland will have to fall back upon your
help, after all. My efforts have not been at all successful. You tie
such good knots!" cried Lady Margot, in a tone of enthusiasm which
seemed to imply that the tying of knots was one of the rarest and most
valuable of accomplishments. Looking into her face, Mollie's
embarrassment died a sudden death, and she found herself smiling back
with a delicious sense of comradeship and understanding.

"Oh, I know the trick. I can undo them in a moment, and then won't you
come and have tea with us on the terrace? It is all ready, and it seems
a sin to be indoors on this lovely day. My sister will be there waiting
for us; she was just coming up the path by the lake as I turned the
corner."

"Oh, that is nice!" said Lady Margot. She looked as if she were about
to ask another question, but checked herself, and strolled along beside
the bath-chair, chatting alternately to Jack and Mollie with an ease and
grace which might have come from long years' acquaintanceship. As they
turned the corner of the terrace she was a step in advance, and Mollie
saw her stop short for the fraction of a moment while the colour rushed
into her pale cheeks. She had surprised a pretty little tableau--a
tableau to which the inhabitants of the Court had grown accustomed
during the last few days--Ruth seated on her chair, her lovely head
drooped shyly forward, Victor leaning impressively towards her, his dark
eyes bent on her face. They were too much engrossed to hear the
approaching footsteps, but the sound of the chair crunching over the
gravel at last aroused their attention, when Victor turned round, and
leapt to his feet, white and breathless.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

"THE OGRE."

It was not a successful tea-party; for the fact of Victor's previous
acquaintance with Lady Margot, so far from acting as a bond of union,
seemed to cast a constraint over all. The meeting between the two had
been cool and unnatural. They persistently avoided speaking to or
looking at each other, and it seemed to Mollie's critical ear as if even
Lady Margot's voice had altered in tone since she had turned the corner
of the terrace. She chatted away as easily as before, but the friendly
manner was replaced by something colder and more formal. As she sat
with veil turned back, the full rays of the sun shining upon her face,
it became more obvious than ever that, in spite of chestnut hair and
violet eyes, Lady Margo