looking up at the ceiling and speaking as
though to himself, "would make an admirable heroine for the
psychological novelist. She is a bundle of fancies; one can never rely
upon what she is going to do. What other girl in the world would get
engaged on the Thursday, and come down here on the Friday to think it
over--leaving, of course, her _fiance_ in town? Doesn't that strike you
as singular?"

"Is it," I asked calmly, "a genuine case?"

Lord Blenavon nodded.

"I do not think that it is a secret," he said, helping himself to wine
and passing the decanter. "She has made up her mind at last to marry
Mostyn Ray. The affair has been hanging about for more than a year. In
fact, I think that there was something said about it before Ray went
abroad. Personally, I think that he is too old. I don't mind saying so
to you, because that has been my opinion all along. However, I suppose
it is all settled now."

I kept my eyes fixed upon the wineglass in front of me, but the things
which I saw, no four walls had ever enclosed. One moment the rush of
the sea was in my ears, another I was lying upon the little horsehair
couch in my sitting-room. I felt her soft white fingers upon my pulse
and forehead. Again I saw her leaning down from the saddle of her great
brown horse, and heard her voice, slow, emotionless, yet always with its
strange power to play upon my heartstrings. And yet, while the grey
seas of despair were closing over my head, I sat there with a
stereotyped smile upon my lips, fingering carelessly the stem of my
wineglass, unwilling guest of an unwilling host. I do not know how long
we sat there in silence, but it seemed to me an eternity, for all the
time I knew that Blenavon was watching me. I felt like a victim upon
the rack, whilst he, the executioner, held the cords. I do not think,
however, that he learnt anything from my face.

With a little shrug of the shoulders he abandoned the subject.

"By-the-bye, Ducaine," he said, "I hope you won't mind my asking you a
rather personal question."

"If it is only personal," I answered quietly, "not at all. As you know,
I may not discuss any subject connected with my work."

"Quite so! I only want to know whether your secretarial duties begin
and end with your work on the Council of Defence, or are you at all in
my father's confidence as regards his private affairs?"

"I am temporary secretary to the Council of Defence only, Lord
Blenavon," I answered. "I know noth