se, I know this country
a little. I stayed near here three years ago with the Nevilles. Archie
and I used to fish."

"Did you ever catch anything?" Wingarde asked, with his quiet eyes on
her face.

"Of course we did," she answered. "Salmon trout--beauties. Oh, and other
things. I forget what they were called. We had great fun, I remember."

Her face flushed at the remembrance. Archie had been very romantic in
those days, quite foolishly so. But somehow she had enjoyed it.

Wingarde said no more. He rose directly the meal was over. It was a
perfect summer morning. The view from the windows was exquisite. Beyond
the green stretches of the park rose peak after peak of sunlit
mountains. There were a few cloud-shadows floating here and there. In
one place, gleaming like a thread of silver, he could see a waterfall
tumbling down a barren hillside.

Suddenly, through the summer silence, an octave of bells pealed
joyously.

Nina started

"Why, it's Sunday!" she exclaimed. "I had quite forgotten. We ought to
go to church."

Wingarde turned round.

"What an inspiration!" he said dryly.

His tone offended her. She drew herself up.

"Are you coming?" she asked coldly.

He looked at her with the same cynical smile with which he had received
her overture the night before.

"No," he said. "I won't bore you with my company this morning."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"As you please," she said, turning to the door.

He made no rejoinder. And as she passed out, she realized that he
believed she had suggested going to church in order to escape an hour of
his hated society. It was but a slight injustice and certainly not
wholly unprovoked by her. But, curiously, she resented it very strongly.
She almost felt as if he had insulted her.

She found him smoking in the garden when she returned from her solitary
expedition, and she hoped savagely that he had found his own society as
distasteful as she did; though on second thoughts this seemed scarcely
possible.

She decided regretfully, yet with an inner sense of expediency, that she
would spend the afternoon in his company. But her husband had other
plans.

"You have had a hot walk," he said. "You had better rest this afternoon.
I am going to do a little mountaineering; but I mean to be back by
tea-time. Perhaps when it is cool you will come for a stroll, unless you
have arranged to attend the evening service also."

He glanced at her and saw the indignant colour ri