obert, slowly. "But I was
afraid of---of being forestalled."

Miss Hartley succeeded in divesting her face of every atom of
expression. Robert Vyner gazed at her admiringly.

"I am glad that you understand me," he murmured. "It makes things easier
for me. I don't suppose that you have the faintest idea how shy and
sensitive I really am."

Miss Hartley, without even troubling to look at him, said that she was
quite sure she had not.

"Nobody has," said Robert, shaking his head, "but I am going to make a
fight against it. I am going to begin now. In the first place I want you
not to think too hardly of my father. He has been a very good father to
me. We have never had a really nasty word in our lives."

"I hope you never will have," said Joan, with some significance.

"I hope not," said Robert; "but in any case I want to tell you--"

Miss Hartley snatched away the hand he had taken, and with a hasty
glance at the door retreated a pace or two from him.

"What is the matter?" he inquired, in a low voice.

Miss Hartley's eyes sparkled.

"My eldest daughter has just come in," she said, demurely. "I think you
had better go."

CHAPTER XXIII

MRS. CHINNERY received the news of her brother's marriage with a
calmness that was a source of considerable disappointment and annoyance
to her friends and neighbours. To begin with, nobody knew how it had
reached her, and several worthy souls who had hastened to her, hot-foot,
with what they had fondly deemed to be exclusive information had
some difficulty in repressing their annoyance. Their astonishment was
increased a week later on learning that she had taken a year's lease of
No. 9, Tranquil Vale, which had just become vacant, and several men had
to lie awake half the night listening to conjectures as to where she had
got the money.

Most of the furniture at No. 5 was her own, and she moved it in
piecemeal. Captain Sellers, who had his own ideas as to why she
was coming to live next door to him, and was somewhat flattered in
consequence, volunteered to assist, and, being debarred by deafness from
learning that his services were refused, caused intense excitement by
getting wedged under a dressing-table on the stairs.

[Illustration: Wedged under a dressing-table 282]

To inquiries as to how he got there, the captain gave but brief replies,
and those of an extremely sailorly description, the whole of his really
remarkable powers being devoted for the time being