ed with pink carnations,
and that garlands of the flower, tied with pink ribbons, formed the
frieze of the white wallpaper.

"Well, you were always a petted and spoilt child," I said to her; "and
I suppose you are going to be so to the end of the chapter."

"Only more so," she said, with her youthful arrogance. "You can't think
what a splendid hand at spoiling Jack is."

I laughed, told her to let me know how much he spoilt her in five
years' time, and left her. For a servant had interrupted our
conversation with the announcement that Mr Mavor, who had returned from
town, would be glad to speak to me.

"Hughie? how absurd!" Daphne said, who wanted to go on talking to me
about her lover. "As if Hughie could possibly have a thing to say to
you which would not keep, Hannah!"

"It is to make me an offer of marriage I have not the slightest doubt,"
I told her, being of an age when a woman can make jokes of that kind
about herself and pretend not to feel the heartprick.

I found the head of the house in the room which had been turned into a
museum of objects of art--precious and not precious--for exhibition on
the morrow. I had known the young man from boyhood, and I saw at once
that something was amiss. He had left for town before my arrival that
morning, and this was our first meeting, but he forgot to come forward
and put out his hand. He stalked past me, instead, and banged the door
by which I had entered; then he seized me by the arm.

"Hannah," he said, "I want to talk to you. I want your advice. We're in
a devil of a mess."

"It's the wedding-dress, or the wedding-cake!" I said, staring at him.
"One of them hasn't come!"

"It's about Marston. Something I only heard to-day. He must not be
allowed to marry my sister."

"Hughie!"

He took his hand from my arm, laid it on one of the tables spread with
the presents. There was a faint ringing of silver and china to show the
hand was not steady. He is a self-contained, sturdily-built,
matter-of-fact young man in the early twenties; quite unlike his
sister, whose appearance is elegantly fragile, who is filled with
nerves, and sensitive to the fingertips.

"I got a letter this morning," he went on, and for a moment fumbled in
his coat-pocket as if with the intention, quickly relinquished, of
showing it. "It was from a woman; telling me of certain incidents in
Marston's career."

"Probably all made up. Lies."

"It isn't. Once for all, don't waste time in sayin