eed she
name the place she knew Gerry did go to? America would have done just
as well.

"Australia--New Zealand--America--anywhere!" But Sally doesn't
mind--has fallen back on her letter-sketch.

"Apologizing for troubling you, believe me, dear madam, yours
faithfully--or very faithfully, or truly--Rosalind Nightingale.... No;
I should not like Mr. Fenwick to go away anywhere. No more would you.
I want him here, for us. So do you!"

"I should be very sorry indeed for Mr. Fenwick to go away. We should
miss him badly. But fancy what his wife must be feeling, if he has one.
I can sympathize with her." It really was a relief to say anything so
intensely true.

Did the reality with which she spoke impress Sally more than the mere
words, which were no more than "common form" of conversation? Probably,
for something in them brought back her conference with the Major on
Boxing Day morning when her mother was at church. What was that
she had said to him when she was sitting on his knee improving his
whiskers?--that if she, later on, saw reason to suppose his suspicions
true, she would ask her mother point-blank. Why not? And here she was
with the same suspicions, quite, quite independent of the Major. And
see how dark it was in both rooms! One could say anything. Besides, if
her mother didn't want to answer, she could pretend to be asleep. She
wouldn't ask too loud, to give her a chance.

"Mother darling, if Mr. Fenwick was to make you an offer, how should
you like it?"

"Oh dear! _What's_ the child saying? What is it, Sallykin? I was just
going off."

Now, obviously, you can ask a lady Sally's question in the easy course
of flowing chat, but you can't drag her from the golden gates of sleep
to ask it. It gets too official. So Sally backed out, and said she had
said nothing, which wasn't the case. The excessive readiness with which
her mother accepted the statement looks, to us, as if she had really
been awake and heard.

CHAPTER XIV

HOW MILLAIS' "HUGUENOT" CAME OF A WALK IN THE BACK GARDEN. AND HOW
FENWICK VERY NEARLY KISSED SALLY

In spite of Colonel Lund's having been so betimes in his forecastings
about Mrs. Nightingale and Fenwick (as we must go on calling him for
the present), still, when one day that lady came, about six weeks
after the nocturne in our last chapter, and told him she must have his
consent to a step she was contemplating before she took it, he felt a
little shock in his heart--one