ooked to the younger to give him some comfort--some
of his time to help him to bear it, by talking it all over. Barbara,
therefore, while dressing for Mrs. Thesiger's "At Home," had scarcely
felt anxiety, and, indeed, it is only now when she has come down to the
drawing-room to find Joyce awaiting her, also in gala garb, so far as a
gown goes, that a suspicion of coming trouble takes possession of her.

"He is late, isn't he?" she says, looking at Joyce with something
nervous in her expression. "What can have kept him? I know he wanted to
meet the General, and now----What can it be?"

"His mother, probably," says Joyce, indifferently. "From your
description of her, I should say she must be a most thoroughly
uncomfortable old person."

"Yes. Not pleasant, certainly. A little of her, as George Ingram used to
say, goes a long way. But still----And these Thesiger people are friends
of his, and----"

"You are working yourself up into a thorough belief in the sensational
street accident," says Joyce, who has seated herself well out of the
glare of the chandelier. "You want to be tragic. It is a mistake,
believe me."

Something in the bitterness of the girl's tone strikes on her sister's
ear. Joyce had not come down to dinner, had pleaded a headache as an
excuse for her non-appearance, and Mrs. Monkton and Tommy (she could not
bear to dine alone) had devoured that meal _a deux_. Tommy had certainly
been anything but dull company.

"Has anything happened, Joyce?" asks her sister quickly. She has had her
suspicions, of course, but they were of the vaguest order.

Joyce laughs.

"I told you your nerves were out of order," says she. "What should
happen? Are you still dwelling on the running over business? I assure
you you wrong Freddy. He can take care of himself at a crossing as well
as another man, and better. Even a hansom, I am convinced, could do no
harm to Freddy."

"I wasn't thinking of him," says Barbara, a little reproachfully,
perhaps. "I----"

"No. Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Here he is," cries she
suddenly, springing to her feet as the sound of Monkton's footsteps
ascending the stairs can now be distinctly heard. "I hope you will
explain yourself to him." She laughs again, and disappears through the
doorway that leads to the second hall outside, as Monkton enters.

"How late you are, Freddy," says his wife, the reproach in her voice
heightened because of the anxiety she had been enduring. "I