such a lot."

"I'd die first," she answered; "bisques are the badge of advertised
inferiority and a mark of the giver's contempt."

"Stuff!" said Morris.

"Stuff, indeed! As though it wasn't bad enough to be beaten at all; but
to be beaten with bisques!"

"That's another argument," said Morris. "First you say you are too proud
to accept them, and next that you won't accept them because it is worse
to be defeated with points than without them."

"Anyway, if you had the commonest feelings of humanity you wouldn't beat
me," replied Mary, adroitly shifting her ground for the third time.

"How can I help it if you won't have the bisques?"

"How? By pretending that you were doing your best, and letting me
win all the same, of course; though if I caught you at it I should be
furious. But what's the use of trying to teach a blunt creature like you
tact? My dear Morris, I assure you I do not believe that your efforts
at deception would take in the simplest-minded cow. Why, even Dad sees
through you, and the person who can't impose upon my Dad----. Oh!" she
added, suddenly, in a changed voice, "there is George coming through
the gate. Something has happened to my father. Look at his face, Morris;
look at his face!"

In another moment the footman stood before them.

"Please, miss, the master," he began, and hesitated.

"Not dead?" said Mary, in a slow, quiet voice. "Do not say that he is
dead!"

"No, miss, but he has had a stroke of the heart or something, and
the doctor thought you had better be fetched, so I have brought the
carriage."

"Come with me, Morris," she said, as, dropping the croquet mallet, she
flew rather than ran to the brougham.

Ten minutes later they were at Seaview. In the hall they met Mr.
Charters, the doctor. Why was he leaving? Because----

"No, no," he said, answering their looks; "the danger is past. He seems
almost as well as ever."

"Thank God!" stammered Mary. Then a thought struck her, and she looked
up sharply and asked, "Will it come back again?"

"Yes," was his straightforward answer.

"When?"

"From time to time, at irregular periods. But in its fatal shape, as I
hope, not for some years."

"The verdict might have been worse, dear," said Morris.

"Yes, yes, but to think that _it_ has passed so near to him, and he
quite alone at the time. Morris," she went on, turning to him with an
energy that was almost fierce, "if you won't have my father to live with
us, I won't marry