raditions
belonging to his paternal ancestry. Go on, Mr. March, you're shamefully
neglecting your duty. No heel taps."

She threw back her head showing the whole of her white throat, drained
her glass and then flung it over her shoulder. It fell on the black,
polished boards, beyond the edge of the carpet, shivered into a hundred
pieces, that lay glittering, like scattered diamonds in the lamplight.
For the day had died altogether. Fleets of dark, straggling cloud
chased each other across spaces of pallid sky, against the earthward
edge of which dusky tree-tops strained and writhed in the force of the
tearing gale.

Ella Ormiston rose laughing from her place at table.

"That's the correct form," she said, "it ensures the fulfilment of the
wish. You ought all to have cast away your glasses regardless of
expense. Come, Mary, we will remove ourselves. Mind and bid me good-bye
before you go, Dr. Knott, and report on Lady Calmady. It's probably the
last time you'll have the felicity of seeing me. I'm off at cockcrow
to-morrow morning."

CHAPTER VIII

ENTER A CHILD OF PROMISE

After closing the door behind the two ladies, Ormiston paused by the
near window and gazed out into the night. The dinner had been, in his
opinion, far from a success. He feared his relation to Mary Cathcart
had retrograded rather than progressed. He wished his sister-in-law
would be more correct in speech and behaviour. Then he held the
conversation had been in bad taste. The doctor should have abstained
from pressing Julius with questions. He assured himself, again, that
the story was not worth a moment's serious consideration; yet he
resented its discussion. Such discussion seemed to him to tread hard on
the heels of impertinence to his sister, to her husband's memory, and
to this boy, born to so excellent a position and so great wealth. And
the worst of it was, that like a fool, he had started the subject
himself!

"The wind's rising," he remarked at last. "You'll have a rough drive
home, Knott."

"It won't be the first one. And my beauty's of the kind which takes a
lot of spoiling."

The answer did not please the young man. He sauntered across the room
and dropped into his chair, with a slightly insolent demeanour.

"All the same, don't let me detain you," he said, "if you prefer seeing
Lady Calmady at once and getting off."

"You don't detain me," Dr. Knott answered. "I'm afraid that it's just
the other way about, and that