ce angrily, and then a nice quarrel would ensue. Quarrels,
indeed, seemed to be evolved from incredible beginnings, and the
evenings bristled with them. Mrs. Kettering was easily drawn into
these disagreements and took a leading part in no few of them. Simon
and Mark, however, would remain impassive, the first reading his paper
and uttering now and again a facetious, mild protest, the second
smoking his eternal pipe in unyielding taciturnity. Mrs. Kettering
likewise annoyed her daughters by constantly talking to Morgan in
their presence of the difficulty of finding husbands for them.

One morning Cleo, who was down early, pounced upon a letter for him
and wanted to read it. But as he recognised his father's writing--the
envelope had had much redirection in varying scripts--and as her
letters were always sealed to him, he refused to open it in her
presence. He was not in the mood for a squabble with her. The fact
that his father had managed to pierce his inaccessibility had unnerved
him, the mere sight of the letter almost making him tremble. He put it
in his pocket; it was imperative he should be alone when reading it.
Cleo grew sulky and looked it. Alice and Mary, being in a particularly
affectionate mood that morning, came hovering round her, entwining her
waist with their long arms, pressing their faces gently against hers,
and kissing her with ostentatious sympathy. "What has the naughty man
been doing to our darling?" they asked in a sort of playful, mincing
lisp. "Has he made our dear, dear sister miserable? Naughty, naughty
man!"

That made a beginning. As a continuation Mrs. Kettering took it into
her head once more to lament the scarcity of possible husbands for
Alice and Mary over the breakfast table. They retorted that no doubt
there were plenty of husbands to be picked up without a penny, who'd
be glad to come and stay at the house and idle about and eat their
fill. Evidently they had overheard talk between their parents, for it
had been represented to them that Cleo and her husband were only in
Dover on a friendly visit to the family.

Before the others had realised it Morgan had risen and left the house.
His every nerve was a-tingle with pain. He was finished with the
Ketterings, he told himself; it was impossible for him ever to set
foot in that house again.

CHAPTER IV.

The sense that a final rupture had occurred between him and the
Ketterings was so strong in Morgan that for the moment he