ragile-looking in the passage of a single night.
Refraining from comment, however, she held out the telegram.

"What does it mean, Nan?" she asked. "I thought you said you'd left a
note telling Roger you were coming here?"

Nan read the wire in silence. Her face turned a shade whiter than
before, if that were possible, and there was a smouldering anger in her
eyes as she crushed the flimsy sheet in suddenly tense fingers and
tossed it into the fire.

"No answer," she said shortly. As soon as the maid had left the room,
she burst out furiously:

"How dare he? How _dare_ he think such a thing?"

"What's the matter?" asked Penelope in a perturbed voice.

Nan turned to her passionately.

"Don't you see what he means? _Don't you see_? . . . It's because I
didn't write to him yesterday from here. He doesn't _believe_ the note
I left behind--he doesn't believe I'm with you!"

"But, my dear, where else should you be?" protested Penelope. "And why
shouldn't he believe it?"

Nan shrugged her shoulders.

"I told you we'd had a row. It--it was rather a big one. He probably
thinks I've run away and married--oh, well"--she laughed
mirthlessly--"anyone!"

"Nan!"

"That's what's happened"--nodding. "It was really . . . quite a big
row." She paused, then continued, indignantly:

"As if I'd have tried to deceive him over it--writing that I was going
to you when I wasn't! Roger's a fool! He ought to have known me
better. I've never yet been coward enough to lie about anything I
wanted to do."

"But, my dear"--Penelope was openly distressed--"we must send him a
wire at once. I'd no idea you'd quarrelled--like that! He'll be out
of his mind with anxiety."

"He deserves to be"--in a hard voice--"for distrusting me. No,
Penny"--as Penelope drew a form towards her preparatory to inditing a
reassuring telegram. "I won't have a wire sent to him. D'you hear? I
won't have it!" Her foot beat excitedly on the floor.

Penelope signed and laid the telegraph form reluctantly aside.

"You agree with me, Kitten?" Nan whirled round upon Kitty for support.

"I'm not quite sure," came the answer. "You see, I've been away so
long I really hardly know how things stand between you and Roger."

"They stand exactly as they were. I've promised to marry him in April.
And I'm going to keep my promise."

"Not in April," said Kitty very quietly. "You won't be able to marry
him so soon. Nan, dear, I've--I've bad new