ing.

Mrs. Feverel watched her. "I knew it was coming, my dear--weeks ago.
You know I told you, only you wouldn't listen. Lord! it was plain
enough. He'd only been playing the same game as all the rest of them."

Dahlia dried her eyes fiercely. "I'm a fool to make so much of it,"
she said. "I wasn't good enough--he said--not good enough. His people
wouldn't like it and the rest--Oh! I've been a fool, a fool!"

Her mood changed to anger again. Even now she did not grasp it fully,
but he had insulted her. He had flung back in her face all that she
had given him. Injured pride was at work now, and for a moment she
hated him so that she could have killed him gladly had he been there.
But it was no good--she could not think about it clearly; she was
tired, terribly tired.

"I'm tired to death, mother," she said. "I can't think to-night."

She stumbled a little as she turned to the door.

"At least," said Mrs. Feverel, "there are the letters."

But Dahlia had scarcely heard.

"The letters?" she said.

"That he wrote in the summer. You have them safe enough?"

But the girl did not reply. She only climbed heavily up the dark
stairs.

CHAPTER IV

Clare Trojan was having her breakfast in her own room. It was ten
o'clock, and a glorious September morning, and the sparrows were
twittering on the terrace outside as though they considered it highly
improper for any one to have breakfast between four walls when Nature
had provided such a splendid feast on the lawn.

Clare was reading a violent article in the _National Review_ concerning
the inadequacy of our present solution of the housing problem; but it
did not interest her.

If the world had only been one large Trojan family there would have
been no problem. The trouble was that there were Greeks. She did
dimly realise their existence, but the very thought of them terrified
her. Troy must be defended, and there were moments when Clare was
afraid that its defenders were few; but she blinded herself to the
dangers of attack. "There are no Greeks, there _are_ no Greeks."
Clare stood alone on the Trojan walls and defied that world of
superstition and pagan creeds. With the armour of tradition and an
implicit belief in the watchword of all true Trojan leaders, "Qui dort
garde," she warded the sacred hearths; but there were moments when her
eyes were opened and signs were revealed to her of another
world--something in which Troy could have no pl