"It seems all right when you are with me, and talk about it," she
continued slowly, raising her eyes to mine. "It's when I don't see you
for weeks and weeks that it seems to get on my mind, and I get afraid.
I don't understand it, I don't understand it even now."

"Don't understand what?" I repeated.

She looked around. Her air of troubled mystery was only half assumed.

"How that man died!" she whispered.

"I can assure you that I did not kill him, if that is what you mean," I
told her coolly. "The matter is over and done with. I think that you
are very foolish to give it another thought."

She shuddered.

"Men can forget those things easier," she said. "Perhaps he had a wife
and children. Perhaps they are wondering all this time what has become
of him."

"People die away from their homes and families every day, every hour," I
answered. "It is only morbid to brood over one particular example."

"Father would never forgive me if he knew," she murmured, irrelevantly.
"He hates us to do anything underhand."

I heard Grooton return with a sigh of relief.

"You will have some tea," I suggested.

She shook her head and stood up. I did not press her.

"No, I won't," she said. "I am sorry I came. I don't understand you,
Mr. Ducaine. You seem to have changed altogether just these last few
weeks. I can see that you are dying to get rid of me now, but you were
glad enough to see me, or at any rate you pretended to be, once."

My breath was a little taken away. I looked at her in surprise. Her
cheeks were flushed, her voice had shaken with something more like anger
than any form of pathos. I was at a loss how to answer her, and while I
hesitated the interruption which I had been praying for came, though
from a strange quarter. My door was pushed a few inches open, and I
heard Lady Angela's clear young voice.

"Are you there, Mr. Ducaine? May I come in?"

Before I could answer she stood upon the threshold, I saw the delightful
little smile fade from her lips as she looked in. She hesitated, and
seemed for a moment about to retreat.

"Please come in, Lady Angela," I begged, eagerly.

She came slowly forward.

"I must apologize for my abominable country manners," she said, resting
the tips of her fingers for a moment in mine. "I saw your door was not
latched, and it never occurred to me to knock."

"It was not necessary," I assured her. "A front door which does not
boast a knocker or a bell must expect to be t