ie's
shoulders, and turned to the others, his eyes full of tears.

"I don't understand what he means!" he groaned.

He sank on a chair and hid his face.

XIV

Major Forsyth was not at all discouraged by the issue of his
intervention.

"Now I see how the land lies," he said, "it's all plain sailing.
Reconnoitre first, and then wire in."

He bravely attacked James next day, when they were smoking in the garden
after breakfast. Uncle William smoked nothing but gold-tipped
cigarettes, which excited his nephew's open scorn.

"I've been thinking about what you said yesterday, James," he began.

"For Heaven's sake, Uncle William, don't talk about it any more. I'm
heartily sick of the whole thing. I've made up my mind, and I really
shall not alter it for anything you may say."

Major Forsyth changed the conversation with what might have been
described as a strategic movement to the rear. He said that Jamie's
answer told him all he wished to know, and he was content now to leave
the seeds which he had sown to spring up of their own accord.

"I'm perfectly satisfied," he told his sister, complacently. "You'll
see that if it'll all come right now."

Meanwhile, Mary conducted herself admirably. She neither avoided James
nor sought him, but when chance brought them together, was perfectly
natural. Her affection had never been demonstrative, and now there was
in her manner but little change. She talked frankly, as though nothing
had passed between them, with no suspicion of reproach in her tone. She
was, indeed, far more at ease than James. He could not hide the effort
it was to make conversation, nor the nervous discomfort which in her
presence he felt. He watched her furtively, asking himself whether she
still suffered. But Mary's face betrayed few of her emotions; tanned by
exposure to all weathers, her robust colour remained unaltered; and it
was only in her eyes that James fancied he saw a difference. They had
just that perplexed, sorrowful expression which a dog has, unjustly
beaten. James, imaginative and conscience-stricken, tortured himself by
reading in their brown softness all manner of dreadful anguish. He
watched them, unlit by the smile which played upon the lips, looking at
him against their will, with a pitiful longing. He exaggerated the pain
he saw till it became an obsession, intolerable and ruthless; if Mary
desired revenge, she need not have been dissatisfied. But that
apparently was the las