ing away; he couldn't make out why I always wanted to rush up
to London just when he'd got people staying down there----"

"I didn't mean to work on your emotions," said Eric, as he helped her
out of her cloak.

"Sweetheart, _whatever_ I was doing, you know I'd come from the ends of
the earth, if you were ill. But I'm afraid father'll think me a fraud.
It'll be your fault if I can't get away next week."

Eric had to think for a moment before he recalled that her birthday fell
in the following week. It was the first time that she had referred even
indirectly to it on her own initiative. He looked at her closely, but
her face revealed only high spirits and a radiant pleasure in being with
him again.

"I wanted to talk over one or two things with you," he explained, "We
shall start fairer if you don't feel you're under any obligation to
me----"

She caught hold of his hand and kissed it.

"I shall always feel that, Eric."

"Well, for to-night I want you to feel quite unembarrassed. I want to
talk to you about Jack Waring. He was reported missing last August."

Barbara's face grew suddenly grave; and, in a whisper, she supplied the
date.

"Well, his sister dined with me last n-night----"

Eric stopped as he caught himself stammering, but Barbara laid her hand
imploringly on his arm.

"Go on!" she cried. "I can stand it!"

"They don't know whether he's alive or dead." Her hands were slowly
withdrawn from her cheeks, her face regained its composure, and she
resettled herself, still breathing a little quickly, on the sofa. "They
know nothing," he went on slowly. "But there's reason to suppose that he
wasn't killed at the time when he was reported missing. There's reason
to suppose that he was alive at the beginning of October."

Still standing with his shoulders leaning against the mantel-piece, Eric
told her slowly and colourlessly of the belated cheque. At the end she
sat watching him in silence. She too, surely, was trying to convince
herself that this was what she had always expected. . . .

"That's all I know. That's all his people know," he added.

"But October. . . . June. . . . Why hasn't he written?"

"You're assuming he's alive. We don't know. He may have been badly
wounded, he may have died of wounds----"

"But if he was well enough to write a cheque?"

"I don't pretend to explain it. His sister threshed it all out at the
bank yesterday; she and I threshed it all out again last night. And
we'r