l be a wet evening," says Dysart abruptly.

"Oh, my dear fellow! You can hardly be called a weather prophet," says
Beauclerk banteringly. "You ought to know that a settled gray sky like
that seldom means rain."

No more is said about it then, and no mention is made of it at luncheon.
At half-past two precisely, however, a dog cart comes round to the hall
door. Joyce running lightly down stairs, habited for a drive, meets
Dysart at the foot of the staircase.

"Do not go," says he abruptly.

"Not go--now," with a glance at her costume.

"I didn't believe you would go," says he vehemently. "I didn't believe
it possible--or I should have spoken sooner. Nevertheless, at this last
moment, I entreat you to give it up."

"Impossible," says she curtly, annoyed by his tone, which is perhaps,
unconsciously, a little dictatorial.

"You refuse me?"

"It is not the question. I have said I would go. I see no reason for not
going. I decline to make myself foolish in the eyes of everybody by
drawing back at the last moment."

"You have forgotten everything then."

"I don't know," coldly, "that there is anything to remember."

"Oh!" bitterly, "not so far as I am concerned. I count for nothing. I
allow that. But he--I fancied you had at least read him."

"I think, perhaps, there was nothing to read," says she, lowering her
eyes.

"If you can think that, it is useless my saying anything further."

He moves to one side as if to let her pass, but she hesitates. Perhaps
she would have said something to soften her decision--but--a rare thing
with him, he loses his temper. Seeing her standing there before him, so
sweet, so lovely, so indifferent, as he tells himself, his despair
overcomes him.

"I have a voice in this matter," says he, frowning heavily. "I forbid
you to go with that fellow."

A sharp change crosses Miss Kavanagh's face. All the sudden softness
dies out of it. She stoops leisurely, and disengaging the end of the
black lace round her throat from an envious banister that would have
detained her, without further glance or word for Dysart, she goes up the
hall and through the open doorway. Beauclerk, who has been waiting for
her outside, comes forward. A little spring seats her in the cart.
Beauclerk jumps in beside her. Another moment sees them out of sight.

* * * * *

The vagrant sun, that all day long had been coming and going in fitful
fashion, has suddenly sunk behind the t