ling. "For my part, I want to see how the other pair have got on.
They are my pets; and I don't consider they have spent at all a suitable
honeymoon Sunday afternoon--Tristram, with a headache in the
smoking-room, and the bride, taking a walk and being made love to by
Arthur Elterton, and Young Billy, alternately. The kid is as wild about
her as Tristram himself, I believe!"

"Then you still think Tristram is in love with her, do you, Crow?" asked
Anne, once more interested in her original thrill. "He did not show the
smallest signs of it last night then, if so; and how he did not seize
her in his arms and devour her there and then, with all that lovely hair
down and her exquisite shape showing the outline so in that dress--I
can't think! He must be as cold as a stone, and I never thought him so
before, did you?"

"No, and he isn't either, I tell you what, my dear girl, there is
something pretty grim keeping those two apart, I am sure. She is the
kind of woman who arouses the fiercest passions; and Tristram is in the
state that, if something were really to set alight his jealousy, he
might kill her some day."

"Crow--how terrible!" gasped Anne, and then seeing that her friend's
face was serious, and not chaffing, she, too, looked grave. "Then what
on earth is to be done?" she asked.

"I don't know, I have been thinking it over ever since I came in. I
found him in the smoking-room, staring in front of him, not even
pretending to read, and looking pretty white about the gills; and when
he saw it was only me, and I asked him if his head were worse, and
whether he had not better have a brandy and soda, he simply said: 'No,
thanks, the whole thing is a d---- rotten show.' I've known him since he
was a blessed baby you know, so he didn't mind me for a minute. Then he
recollected himself, and said, yes, he would have a drink; and when he
poured it out, he only sipped it, and then forgot about it, jumped up,
and blurted out he had some letters to write, so I left him. I am
awfully sorry for the poor chap, I can tell you. If it is not fate, but
some caprice of hers, she deserves a jolly good beating, for making him
suffer like that."

"Couldn't you say something to her, Crow, dear? We are all so awfully
fond of Tristram, and there does seem some tragedy hanging over them
that ought to be stopped at once. Couldn't you, Crow?"

But Colonel Lowerby shook his head.

"It is too confoundedly ticklish," he grunted. "It might do