t seen Mr. Le Mesurier,' he said; 'he's out, I am afraid.'

The room was empty. Clarice looked round it, doubting her eyes, and with
a sudden revulsion of feeling dropped into a chair by the table and sat
with her face buried in her arms in a flood of tears.

CHAPTER X

Drake bent over her, stroking her hair with a gentle helpless movement of
his hand and occasionally varying his consolation by a pat on the
shoulders. The puffed sleeves of silk yielding under his touch gave him a
queer impression of the girl's fragility.

'Oh don't, child!' he entreated. 'It's my fault for speaking so soon. But
really there's nothing to fear--nothing. It'll all come out right--not a
doubt of that. You'll see.'

Consolation of this kind did but make the tears flow yet more freely.
Drake perceived the fact and stood aside, wondering perplexedly at the
reason. The sound of each sob jerked at his heart; he began to walk
restlessly about the room. The storm, from its very violence, however,
wore itself quickly out; the sobs became less convulsive, less frequent.
Clarice raised her head from her arms and stared out of the window
opposite, with just now and then a little shiver and heave of her back.

Drake stopped his walk and advanced to her. She anticipated his speech,
turning with a start to face him.

'You haven't seen my father?'

'No; the servant told me he had gone out. But I wrote a note saying I
would call again this evening. It is under your elbow.'

Clarice picked up the crumpled envelope and looked at it absently.

'Stephen,' she said, and she tripped upon the name, 'there's something I
ought to tell you--now. But it's rather difficult.'

Drake walked to the window and stood with his back towards her. She felt
grateful to him for the action, and was a little surprised at the tact
which had prompted it.

'Yes?' he said.

'We are not very well off,' she continued; 'perhaps you know that.'

'Yes,' he interrupted.

'But the position's more complicated than you can know'; she was speaking
carefully, weighing her words. 'Of course you know that I have a sister
younger than myself. She's at school in Brussels. Well, by the Sark laws,
the Seigneurie can't be split up between the members of a family. I think
it's the same with all land there. It must go--what's the
word?--unencumbered to the eldest child. So it must come to me--all of
it. That leaves my sister still to be provided for. Father explained the
whole t