n the drawing-room with the windows open on to the garden
and a small, bright fire burning in the grate. Aunt Janet said she had
discovered a nip in the air that morning and was sure Joan would feel
cold after London. Uncle John wandered in and drank a cup of tea and
wandered out again without paying much attention to anyone.

Aunt Janet sat and watched Joan, and the girl, conscious of the scrutiny
and restless under those brown eyes as she had always been restless in
the old days with a childish, unconfessed sin on her conscience, talked
as lightly and as quickly as she could upon every topic under the sun to
Miss Abercrombie. And Miss Abercrombie rose like a sportswoman to the
need. She was too clever a reader of character not to feel the strain
which rested between her two companions. She knew Aunt Janet through and
through, the stern loyalty, the unbending precision of a nature slow to
anger, full of love, but more inclined to justice than mercy where
wrongdoing was concerned. And Joan--well, she had only known Joan half
an hour, but Aunt Janet had been talking of nothing else for the last
fortnight.

They kept the subject of Joan's life in London very well at bay for some
time, but presently Aunt Janet, breaking a silence that had held her,
leaned forward and interrupted their discussion.

"You have not told us why you left, Joan," she said, "or what has been
settled about your plans. Are you on leave, or have you come away for
good?"

Miss Abercrombie watched the faint pink rise up over the girl's face and
die away again, leaving a rather unnatural pallor.

"I have left," Joan was answering. "I----" Suddenly she looked up and
for a moment she and Miss Abercrombie stared at each other. It was as if
Joan was asking for help and the other woman trying to give it by the
very steadiness of her eyes. Then Joan turned. "Aunt Janet," she said,
hurrying a little over the words, "I want to ask you to let us not talk
of my time in London. It--it was not what I meant it to be, perhaps
because of my own fault, but----"

"You were not happy," said Aunt Janet; her love rose to meet the appeal.
"I never really thought you were. I am content to have you back, Joan;
we will let the rest slip away into the past."

"Thank you," whispered Joan; the burden of lying, it seemed, had
followed her, even into this safe retreat; "perhaps some day, later on,
I will try and tell you about it, Aunt Janet."

"Just as you like, dear." Au