ad committed an unforgivable sin by
receiving a stately message from Lady Gertrude to the effect that they
were waiting lunch for her.

On such occasions Nan sometimes felt that it was almost a physical
impossibility to enter that formal dining-room and face the glacial
disapproval manifest on Lady Gertrude's face, the quick glance of
condolence which Isobel would throw her--and which always somehow
filled her with distrust--and the irritability which Roger was scarcely
able to conceal.

Roger's annoyance was generally due to the veiled criticism which his
mother and cousin contrived to exude prior to her appearance. Nothing
definite--an intonation here, a double-edged phrase there--but enough
to show him that his future wife fell far short of the standard Lady
Gertrude had in mind for her. It nettled him, and accordingly he felt
irritated with Nan for giving his mother a fresh opportunity for
disapprobation.

They were all unimportant things--these small jars and clashes of habit
and opinion. But to Nan, who had been used to such absolute freedom,
they were like so many links of a chain which held and chafed her. She
fretted under them as a caged bird frets. Gradually, too, she was
awakening to the limitations of the life which would be hers when she
married Roger, realising that, much as he loved her, he was quite
unable to supply her with either the kind of companionship or the
mental stimulus her temperament craved and which the little coterie of
clever, brilliant people who had been her intimates in town had given
her in full measure. The Trenbys' circle of friends interested her not
at all. The men mostly of the sturdy, sporting type, bored her
ineffably, and she found the women, with their perpetual local gossip
and discussion of domestic difficulties, dull and uninspiring. Of the
McBains, unfortunately, she saw very little, owing to the distance,
between the Hall and Trevarthen Wood.

It was, therefore, with a cry of delight that she welcomed Sandy, who
arrived in his two-seater shortly after Roger had ridden off to the
meet. Lady Gertrude and Isobel had already gone out together, bent
upon some parochial errand in the village, so that Nan was alone with
her thoughts. And they were not particularly pleasant ones.

"Sandy!" She greeted him with outstretched hands. "You angel boy! I
wasn't even hoping to see you for another few weeks or so."

"Just this minute arrived--thought it about time I l