not mind going away to-morrow, and never seeing Brook
Johnstone again?" asked Mrs. Bowring, quietly.

"I? No! Why should I?"

Clare meant to speak the truth, and she thought that it was the truth.
But it was not. She grew a little paler a moment after the words had
passed her lips, but her mother did not see the change of colour.

"I'm glad of that, at all events," said the elder woman. "But I won't go
away. No--I won't," she repeated, as though spurring her own courage.

"Very well," answered the young girl. "But we can keep very much to
ourselves all the time they are here, can't we? We needn't make their
acquaintance--at least--" she stopped short, realising that it would be
impossible to avoid knowing Brook's people if they were stopping in the
same hotel.

"Their acquaintance!" Mrs. Bowring laughed bitterly at the idea.

"Oh--I forgot," said Clare. "At all events, we need not meet
unnecessarily. That's what I mean, you know."

There was a short pause, during which her mother seemed to be thinking.

"I shall see him alone, for I have something to say to him," she said at
last, as though she had come to a decision. "Go out, my dear," she
added. "Leave me alone a little while. I shall be all right when it is
time for luncheon."

Her daughter left her, but she did not go out at once. She went to her
own room and sat down to think over what she had seen and heard. If she
went out she should probably find Johnstone waiting for her, and she did
not wish to meet him just then. It was better to be alone. She would
find out why the idea of not seeing him any more had hurt her after she
had spoken.

But that was not an easy matter at all. So soon as she tried to think of
herself and her own feelings, she began to think of her mother. And when
she endeavoured to solve the mystery and guess the secret, her thoughts
flew off suddenly to Brook, and she wished that she were outside in the
sunshine talking to him. And again, as the probable conversation
suggested itself to her, she was glad that she was not with him, and she
tried to think again. Then she forced herself to recall the scene with
Lady Fan on the terrace, and she did her best to put him in the worst
possible light, which in her opinion was a very bad light indeed. And
his father before him--Adam--her mother had told her the name for the
first time, and it struck her as an odd one--old Adam Johnstone had been
a heart-breaker, and a faith-breaker, and a betra