me back to him,
from the old days of long ago when she had given him the oak leaf, to
the moment of her looking into his eyes, with all her soul in hers, as
she had answered his passionate question. "Afraid? How should I be
afraid--since you are my lord and I am your love? Do not we belong to
one another?"

And in spite of the peace Mrs. Cricklander's absence caused in the
atmosphere, John Derringham grew more unutterably wretched as time went
on.

His cup seemed to be filling from all sides. The Government was going
out in disaster, and, instead of being able to stand by his colleagues
and fight, and perhaps avert catastrophe by his brilliant speeches and
biting wit, he was chained like a log to a sofa and was completely
impotent.

It was no wonder his convalescence was slow, and that Arabella grew
anxious about him. She felt that some of Mrs. Cricklander's wrath and
disgust because of this state of things would fall upon her head.

His ankle was a great deal better now, it was five weeks since the
accident, and in a day or two he hoped to leave for London. Mrs.
Cricklander would be obliged to take an after-cure at the highly
situated castle of an Austrian Prince, an old friend of hers--where the
air was most bracing, she wrote. For her strict instructions to Arabella
before she left, after telling her she might have her mother to keep her
company, and so earning the good creature's deep gratitude, had been:

"You must keep me informed of every slightest turn in Mr.
Derringham--because, until he is perfectly well and amusing again, I
simply can't come back to England. His tragic face bores me to death.
Really, men are too tiresome when there is the slightest thing the
matter with them."

And Arabella had faithfully carried out her instructions.

In common honesty she could not inform her employer that John Derringham
was perfectly well or amusing!

Poor Miss Clinker's happy summer with her mother was being a good deal
dimmed by her unassuaged sympathy and commiseration.

"Of course, he is grieving for that sweet and distinguished girl, Miss
Halcyone La Sarthe," she told herself--and with the old maid's hungering
for romance, which even the highest education cannot quite crush from
the female breast, she longed to know what had parted them.

Mr. Carlyon had gone abroad, she had ascertained that, and La Sarthe
Chase was still closed.

The night before John Derringham left for London, he hobbled down to
din