!" Clodagh's tone was careless and light.

"This morning, then? Come for a ride with me."

She laughed once more, and shook her head.

"I have a letter--a terrible business letter--that must be written--a
letter to Mr. Barnard."

Serracauld raised his eyebrows a trifle satirically.

"To Barny? Ah, then I shan't press the point. But how many dances am I
to have to-night?"

"Dances? You know I shan't dance." She glanced down at her black linen
dress.

He smiled a little.

"Am I a schoolboy, that I should want to dance? How many dances are we
to sit out?"

"To sit out? Oh, I'll--I'll tell you that when we've sat out one."
Without looking at him, she pushed back her chair, as Lady Diana rose.

"Then let that be the first dance?"

She nodded inconsequently.

"Perhaps! The first dance!" She stood up, and joining the rest of the
company, moved down the room.

As she gained the door, Nance ran to her.

"Clo, darling! Can't I stay with you?"

Clodagh smiled down into the eager upturned face.

"Not this morning. I have a business letter to write."

"Then I _must_ go?" Nance's face fell.

"Must, darling."

"But, Clo, you'll think of me--and love me--all the time you're writing
the horrid thing?"

Clodagh laughed; then all at once her face looked grave.

"Dearest," she said suddenly, "you don't know how much!" And without
explaining her words, or waiting for Nance to speak again, she passed
quickly across the hall and up the stairs.

Four different times Clodagh began her letter to Barnard. Sitting by
the writing-table close to the open window of her bedroom, she watched
the various members of the house party depart on their different ways;
but the quieter and more deserted the house became, the more impossible
it seemed to her to accomplish the task she had in hand. At last, with
a gesture of despair, she tore up the half-written letters that lay
strewn about her; and, rising from the table with a sigh of vexation,
left the room, closing the door softly.

With a frown of unhappiness and perplexity still upon her forehead, she
descended the stairs, crossed the hall, and passing round the back of
the house, made her way to the rose garden.

The rose garden at Tuffnell was always a place of beauty; but in the
month of July it was a paradise of scent and colour. Down its centre
ran a long strip of close-cut lawn, flanked on either side by stone
seats and stone nymphs and satyrs, brought from an old It