as
Fanny turned towards the dining-room. "I don't want to see the tea-table
any more! Fan, wasn't it _horrible_ when they came first?"

"Well, they were a bit sticky," said Fanny frankly. "But nobody seemed
to care! Mr. Raymond was just making game of them all the time."

"Well, don't let's think of them," said Toni, shaking herself as though
freeing her shoulders from an incubus. "We'll go on the river for an
hour, Fan, and then you shall see the house."

The programme was carried out successfully, and beneath Fanny's
affectionate chatter Toni regained the spirits she had lost. She took
her cousin on the river, returning in time to see the old house before
the summer darkness fell; and after a very satisfactory little dinner
Miss Gibbs departed, highly pleased with her entertainment.

Owen was not to be home till nearly midnight, and Toni decided not to
sit up. Indeed, she was tired, and it was barely ten o'clock when she
went upstairs to bed. Something was troubling her, too; and as she
walked slowly down the long gallery, lighted only by the Ten Little
Ladies, she was asking herself a question which, in spite of its
humorous form, held a hint of tragedy.

"Shall I have to tell Owen everything--how rude she was and what an
idiot I felt? Must I really tell him about--about the _shrimps_?"

She paused, looking about her as though seeking an answer to her
question, which held indeed a significance which she dimly understood.

But the Ten Little Ladies had no reply to give her; and with a sigh Toni
passed on and entered her own room in silence.

CHAPTER X

Fairly late that night Barry Raymond jumped off his motorcycle at the
gate of the bungalow known locally as the Hope House. It was a perfect
June night, and as he unlatched the gate Barry heard a nightingale
singing its love-song to the moon, the deliciously pure notes ringing
across the river with a fascinating, almost unearthly, effect.

The garden of the bungalow was full of sleeping flowers, and their
fragrance stole gently out like a tender welcome to Barry as he strode
up the path between their ranks, pale-coloured in the moonlight, though
full of rich, glowing colour beneath the sun.

Another welcome greeted him in a moment. There was a low, deep-toned
bark, a white streak of something advancing in a hurtling flash, and
then, as the great Borzoi discovered the visitor to be a friend, she
dropped into a welcoming march, waving her plumy tail t