.

"It was 'Peter'," continued Jim Airth. "The night before he was killed,
he kept turning in his sleep and saying: 'Peter! Hullo, little Peter!
Come here!' I thought perhaps he had a little son named Peter."

"He had no son," said Lady Ingleby, controlling her voice with effort.
"Peter was a dog of which he was very fond. Was that the only name he
spoke?"

"The only one I ever heard," replied Jim Airth.

Then suddenly Lady Ingleby clasped both hands round his arm.

"Jim," she whispered, brokenly, "Not once have you spoken my name. It was
a bargain. We were to be old and intimate friends. I seem to have been
calling you 'Jim' all my life! But you have not yet called me 'Myra,' Let
me hear it now, please."

Jim Airth laid his big hand over both of hers.

"I can't," he said. "Hush! I can't. Not up here--it means too much. Wait
until we get back to earth again. Then--Oh, I say! Can't you help?"

This kind of emotion was an unknown quantity to Lady Ingleby. So was the
wild beating of her own heart. But she knew the situation called for
tact, and was not tactful speech always her special forte?

"Jim," she said, "are you not frightfully hungry? I should be; only I had
an enormous tea before coming out. Would you like to hear what I had for
tea? No. I am afraid it would make you feel worse. I suppose dinner at
the inn was over, long ago. I wonder what variation of fried fish they
had, and whether Miss Susannah choked over a fish-bone, and had to be
requested to leave the room. Oh, do you remember that evening? You looked
so dismayed and alarmed, I quite thought you were going to the rescue! I
wonder what time it is?"

"We can soon tell that," said Jim Airth, cheerfully. He dived into his
pocket, produced a matchbox which he had long been fingering turn about
with his pipe and tobacco-pouch, struck a light, and looked at his watch.
Myra saw the lean brown face, in the weird flare of the match. She also
saw the horrid depth so close to them, which she had almost forgotten. A
sense of dizziness came over her. She longed to cling to his arm; but he
had drawn it resolutely away.

"Half past ten," said Jim Airth. "Miss Murgatroyd has donned her
night-cap. Miss Eliza has sighed: '_Good-night, summer, good-night,
good-night_,' at her open lattice; and Susie, folding her plump hands,
has said: '_Now I lay me_.'"

Myra laughed. "And they will all be listening for you to dump out your
big boots," she said. "That is always