ce arrayed against Roger's happiness. And if this were the
case, if Nan's love were really given elsewhere, then, knowing her as
he did, Sandy foresaw the likelihood of some rash and headlong ending
to it all.

He was silent, pondering this aspect of the matter. She watched him
curiously for a few moments, then, driven, by one of those strange
impulses which sometimes fling down all the barriers of reserve, she
broke into rapid speech.

"You needn't grudge me Maryon's friendship! I've lost everything in
the world worth having--everything real, I mean. Sometimes I feel as
though I can't bear it any longer! And Maryon interests me . . . he's
a sort of mental relation. . . . When I'm with him I can forget even
Peter for a little. . . ."

She broke off, pacing restlessly backwards and forwards, her hands
interlocked, her face set in a white mask of tragedy. All at once she
came to a standstill in front of Sandy and remained staring at him with
an odd kind of surprise in her eyes.

"What on earth have I been talking about?" she exclaimed, passing her
hand across her forehead and peering at him questioningly. "Sandy,
have you been listening? You shouldn't listen to what other people are
thinking. It's rude, you know." She laughed a little hysterically.
"You must just forget it all, Sandy boy."

Sandy had been listening with a species of horror to the sudden
outpouring. He felt as though he had overheard the crying of a soul
which has reached the furthest limit of its endurance. In Nan's
disjointed, broken sentences had been revealed the whole piteous truth,
and in those two short words, "_Even Peter_!" lay the key to all he had
found so difficult to understand. It was Peter Mallory she loved--not
Roger, nor Maryon Rooke!

He had once met Mallory and had admired the man enormously. The
meeting had occurred during the summer preceding that which had
witnessed Nan's engagement to Roger. Peter had been paying a flying
week-end visit to the Seymours, and Sandy had taken a boy's instinctive
liking to the brilliant writer who never "swanked," as the lad put it,
but who understood so well the bitter disappointment of which Duncan
McBain's uncompromising attitude towards music had been the cause. And
this was the man Nan loved and who loved her!

With instinctive tact, Sandy refrained from any comment on Nan's
outburst. Instead, he pushed her gently into a chair, talking the
while, so that she might have tim