"Guess he's no great hero of mine," he said. "But maybe he has his points."

"He has!" Toby assured him with fervor. "You don't know him like I do. He's a—he's a masterpiece."

"That so?" said Jake.

Perhaps Toby felt a lack of sympathy in his tone; she quitted the subject abruptly. "No, that wasn't what I meant. I only wish I'd met you long ago—years and years ago—when you were a cow-boy."

"You were a babe in arms then," said Jake.

She shook her head, quaintly smiling. "I wasn't ever that. I think I must have been born old—began at the wrong end somehow. Some people do, you know."

"I know," said Jake. "When that happens, there's only one thing to be done."

"What?" queried Toby.

His eyes were watching her intently, but there was nothing alarming in their scrutiny. He made reply with absolute gentleness. "Begin again."

"Ah!" A little sound that was more than a sigh escaped her, and then quite suddenly her other hand came out to him; she lifted a quivering face. "You going to help me?" she said.

The action touched him. He took her by the shoulders as he might have taken a boy. "I'll help you," he said.

"You'll be good to me?" Her voice was quivering also, it had a sound of tears.

"Sure!" said Jake, laconic and forceful.

"Keep me straight and pull me up when I go wrong?" pursued Toby tremulously.

"Yes, I'll do that," he said.

"And you won't—you won't—you won't—talk to anybody about me?" she pleaded.

"No," said Jake briefly.

"Not to Lord Saltash? Not to anyone?"

"No," he said again, a hint of sternness in the curt word.

Toby gulped down her distress, was silent for a moment or two, then suddenly smiled upon him—a sunny inconsequent smile. "Guess I've got you on my side now," she said with satisfaction. "You're nice and solid, Mr. Jake Bolton. When you've been picked up from the very bottom of the sea, it's good to have someone big and safe to hold on to."

"That so?" said Jake.

"Yes, I know now why Lord Saltash sent me here—just because you're big—and safe."

"Oh, quite safe," said Jake with his sudden smile.

It came to him—as it had come to Saltash—that there was something piteously like a small animal, storm-driven and seeking refuge, about her. Even in her merriest moments she seemed to plead for kindness.

He patted her shoulder reassuringly as he let her go. "I'll look after you," he said, "if you play the game."

"What game?" said Toby unexpectedly.

He looked her squarely in the eyes. "The only game worth playing," he said. "The straight game."

"Oh, I see," said Toby with much meekness. "Not cheat, you mean? Lord Saltash doesn't allow cheating either."

"Good land!" said Jake in open astonishment.

"You don't know him," said Toby again with conviction.

And Jake laughed, good-humoured but sceptical. "Maybe I've something to learn yet," he said tolerantly. "But it's my impression that for sheer mischief and double-dealing he could knock spots off any other human being on this earth."

"Oh, if that's all you know about him," said Toby, "you've never even met him—never once."

"Have you?" questioned Jake abruptly.

She coloured up to the soft fair hair that clustered about her blue-veined temples, and turned from him with an odd little indrawn breath. "Yes!" she said. "Yes!"—paused an instant as if about to say more; then again in a whisper, "Yes!" she said, and went lightly away as if the subject were too sacred for further discussion.

"Good land!" said Jake again, and departed to his own room in grim amazement.

Saltash the sinner was well known to him and by no means uncongenial; but Saltash the saint, not only beloved, but reverenced and enshrined as such, as something beyond his comprehension! How on earth had he managed to achieve his sainthood?



CHAPTER IX

THE IDOL

"Well?" said Saltash with quizzical interest. "Where is she? And how is she getting on?"

It was the Sunday afternoon of his promised visit, a day soft with spring showers and fleeting sunshine. Maud sat in a basket-chair on the verandah and regarded him with puzzled eyes. She passed his questions by.

"Charlie," she said, "where does she come from?"

He raised his shoulders expressively. "Where do all women come from—and why, chere reine? It would be such a peaceful planet without them."

He was in a baffling mood, and she knew better than to pursue the subject under those conditions. She abandoned her effort with a sigh.

"She is not a woman; she is a child, very charming but utterly irresponsible. She is in the training field just now with Jake and Bunny. She is a positive delight to Jake. She can do anything with the horses."

"But not such a delight to you?" suggested Saltash shrewdly.

Maud hesitated momentarily. "I love her of course," she said then. "But—though I have tried to make her feel at ease—I think she is a little afraid of me—afraid anyhow to be quite natural in my presence."

"But are we any of us that?" protested Saltash. "Are we not all on our best behaviour in the audience-chamber?"

Maud sighed again. "They are all great pals," she said irrelevantly. "She and Bunny are terribly reckless. I hope they won't break their necks before they have done."

"Or their hearts?" suggested Saltash, looking mischievous.

She smiled. "I don't think there is much danger of that, anyhow at present. She is a positive child, Charlie,—as young as Eileen in many ways, or perhaps younger. Shall we walk down to the field and look at them?"

"Your servant, madam!" said Saltash readily.

He was on his feet in an instant, and she realized that he had been chafing to go since the moment of his arrival.

"You take a great interest in her," she remarked, as they walked along the terrace.

He made his most appalling grimace. "I have never had an infant to look after before," he said "And—I have to make my report to Larpent."

"Ah! How is he?" questioned Maud.

He shot her a swift glance. "Is the child anxious?"

"Not in the least. I don't believe she ever thinks about him. She told me on the first day that she hardly knows him."

Saltash laughed. "How honest of her! Well, he's getting better, but he won't be well yet. May I leave her in your charge, a while longer?"

"Of course!" Maud said warmly. "I love to have her, and she is a great help to me too. The children simply worship her, and she is splendid with them. I believe Eileen will very soon get over her dread of riding."

"Toby can ride?" asked Saltash.

"Oh yes, like a cow-boy. She is amazingly fearless, and never minds a tumble in the least. She can do the most extraordinary things exactly like a boy. I am always afraid of her coming to grief, but she never does."

"Funny little beggar!" said Saltash.

"I am quite sure of one thing," pursued Maud. "She never learnt these things at any school. She tells me she has been to a good many."

"I believe that's true," said Saltash. "I imagine she is fairly quick to pick up anything, but I haven't known her myself for long."

"She must have picked up a good deal on The Night Moth," observed Maud unexpectedly.

He glanced at her again. "Why do you say that? She was under my protection—and Larpent's—on The Night Moth."

"I know. She idolizes you," Maud smiled at him somewhat dubiously. "But she must have mixed fairly freely with the crew to have picked up the really amazing language she sometimes uses."

Saltash's brows worked whimsically. "Some of us have a gift that way," he remarked. "Your worthy Jake, for instance—"

"Oh, Jake is a reformed character," she interrupted. "He hardly ever lets himself go now-a-days. And he won't allow it from Bunny. But Toby—Toby never seems to know the good from the bad."

"Has Jake taken her in hand?" asked Saltash with a chuckle.

"Oh yes. He checks her at every turn. I must say she takes it very sweetly, even offered to take her meals in her room yesterday when he was rather down on her. It absolutely disarmed Jake of course. What could he say?"

"Yes, she's a disarming monkey certainly," agreed Saltash. "But I never was great on the management and discipline of children. So she knocks under to the great Jake, does she?"

"Oh, not entirely." Maud laughed a little. "Only this morning they had a battle. I don't know how it is going to end yet. But—she can be very firm."

"She never tried any battles with me," said Saltash, with some complacence.

"No. But then your sense of duty is more elastic than Jake's. You never—probably—asked her to do anything she didn't want to do."

"Can't remember," said Saltash. "What did Jake want?"

Maud's smile lingered. "You'll laugh of course. But Jake is quite right, whatever you do. He wanted her to go to church with little Eileen and me this morning. She's only a child, you know, and he naturally took it for granted that she was going. We both did. But just at the last moment she absolutely refused, told him quite frankly that she was—an atheist."

Saltash's laugh had a sound half-mocking, half-exultant. "What said the worthy Jake to that? Stop! I know what he said. He said. 'You can call yourself by any fool name you please, but you've got to go to Church like a respectable citizen if I say so.' Wasn't that it?"

"Something like it," Maud admitted. "How did you know?"

"Oh, I know Jake," said Saltash dryly. "And what happened then? She refused?"

"Yes, she refused. She was frightened, but she refused. She looked as if she were going to run away, but in the end Jake went off with her to the stables saying they would go to-night. They were quite friends when I saw them again, but she had been crying, poor little thing. I wish I could help her, but somehow I can't get near enough. Jake seems to understand her best."

"Wonder if she will give in?" said Saltash.

They were passing through a shrubbery that led to the training-field, and there came the quick thud of hoofs galloping on short turf as they approached.

"I don't think there is much doubt about that," Maud said.

Saltash laughed again mockingly. "Oh, we all know Jake is invincible, virtuous rectitude incarnate. But you can't hammer a girl into submission like a boy and I rather fancy that Toby is not wholly ignorant of the art of getting her own way."

"Jake never hammered Bunny," Maud said quietly, "But he manages him notwithstanding."

They rounded a curve and came upon the gate that led into the field. The galloping hoofs were close to them. As they reached the corner two riders flashed past at full speed. One of them—Bunny—lay on his horse's neck, yelling wild encouragement to his mount. The other,—a slight, childish figure—was kneeling on the saddle like a small, crouching creature, perfectly poised and wholly unafraid. As the horse that carried her dropped to a canter on the hill, she got to her feet with absolute ease, and stood, arms out and swaying to the animal's motion, till, as they rounded another curve, she dropped to the saddle again, and passed from sight, following in Bunny's tracks.

"Quite a pretty exhibition!" remarked Saltash. "Where is Jake?"

Jake himself appeared at the moment riding soberly, mounted on his favourite horse, The Hundredth Chance. He greeted Saltash with a smile and jumped to the ground to join them at the gate.

"They'll be round again directly. Just riding off their spirits," he explained in his easy drawl. "You motored over, my lord?"

Saltash nodded with a touch of impatience. He was watching with restless eyes for the reappearance of the girl on horseback. She had not seen him at the gate, yet somehow his arrogance rebelled at the fact that she had passed him by.

Jake stood with The Hundredth Chance nuzzling against him. He did not trouble himself to make conversation; that was not his way. He also waited for the reappearance of the riders.

They came, riding side by side and jesting with careless camaraderie. Toby's face was delicately flushed. The fair head had no covering. She was dressed and looked exactly like a boy.

At sight of Saltash standing by the gate her whole attitude changed. She uttered a queer sound, half-whoop, half-sob, and flung herself out of the saddle. In a moment she had reached him, was hanging to his arm in mute greeting, everything else in the world forgotten. It was pathetically like the re-union of a lost dog to its master.

Saltash's ugly face softened miraculously at her action. The jest died on his lips. "Why, Nonette!" he said. "Nonette!"

She strangled another sob. Her face was burning, quivering, appealing, no longer the face of a boy. "I thought you'd forgotten to come," she said.

"What? Was I expected to lunch?" said Saltash. "Ah! Was that why you wouldn't go to church?"

Toby looked up, desperately smiling. "It may have been—partly. But I never do go. Do you?"

"Not often," said Saltash. "I might if I stayed here. There's no knowing. You'll be pleased to hear your daddy is better. He's coming down to the Castle to convalesce. And when he's done that, I'm going to have a party—a coming-out party—for you."

"For me!" Toby gasped, staring at him with scared blue eyes. "I hope you won't, sir," she said.

He laughed back at her, his brows working mischievously. "Mais pourquoi pas, mignonne? You are old enough. Maud will come and be hostess, won't you, Maud? You shall have Jake too for a watch-dog, if you want him. After that, you shall be presented at Court, when you've learnt to curtsey prettily instead of turning somersaults. You must let your hair grow, Nonette, and leave off wearing breeks. You've got to be a credit to me."

"Oh, damn!" said Toby in dismay. "I mean—oh, bother!"

"Yes, it's a good thing you mean only that, isn't it?" laughed Saltash. "If you go on wearing those masculine things much longer, you'll have Jake punching your head for little slips of that kind. He's getting mighty particular, I'm told."

"Not afraid of Jake!" said Toby, casting a swift look at her host.

Jake was lighting his pipe. His face wore a faint smile. He was holding Toby's animal as well as his own. "Aren't you going to ride again?" he said.

"No," said Toby.

"Oh, come on!" Bunny pushed his horse forward without dismounting. "Glad to see you, Charlie, but we must have one more gallop. Come on, Toby! Be a sport!"

But Toby, still holding Saltash's sleeve, would not so much as look at him. "Not coming," she said tersely.

Saltash laughed. Bunny coloured suddenly and hotly. "Oh, all right!" he said, and, wheeling his horse, rode away.

"Now you've hurt his little feelings," observed Saltash.

"Who cares?" said Toby, and nestled closer, till with his sudden reckless grin he thrust an arm about her shoulders.

"I'll tell you what it is, Nonette. You're getting spoilt all round. Something will have to be done. Shall I take her away, Jake?"

"And bring me back when I'm good?" put in Toby eagerly.

He laughed and pinched her ear. "I shall want to keep you myself—when you're good. I haven't yet found anyone to sew on buttons like you do. No, ma chere, you'll have to stay and be caned for your sins. Jake is a better schoolmaster than I am, being so eminently virtuous himself. I hope you do cane her, Jake. I'm sure she needs it."

"No," Jake said, preparing to mount again. "I haven't tried that at present."

Toby watched him a little wistfully as he moved away, leading her horse. "I am trying to be good," she said. "He knows that."

"Yes, she's trying hard," Maud said very kindly. "Jake and I are going to be proud of her some day."

Saltash's brows twisted humorously. "I wonder," he said. And then again lightly he laughed. "Don't get too good, Nonette! I can't rise to it."

She turned swiftly, looking up into the derisive face above her with open adoration in her own. "You!" she said. "You!"

"Well, what about me?" he said.

She coloured very deeply. "Nothing, sir, nothing! Only—you're so great!"

He flicked her cheek, grimacing hideously. "Is that your pretty way of telling me I'm the biggest rotter you ever met?"

"Oh, no!" said Toby quickly and earnestly. "Oh no! I think you are—a king. If—if anyone could make me believe in God, you could."

She spoke with a sincerity that held a hint of passion. The grimace flicked out of Saltash's face like a picture from a screen. For a moment he had the blank look of a man who has been hit, he knows not where. Then with lightning swiftness, his eyes went to Maud. "You hear that?" he said, almost on a note of challenge. "Why don't you laugh?"

She met his look with absolute steadfastness. There was a certain pity in her own. "Because," she said with great gentleness, "I believe that it is true."

In the silence that followed she waited for his own laugh of mockery and did not hear it. The odd eyes comprehended her, and passed her by, fell abruptly to Toby and dwelt upon her with a whimsical tenderness.

"I always said you were a little ass, didn't I, Toby?" he said.

And Toby turned with an apologetic murmur and softly kissed his hand.



CHAPTER X

RESOLUTIONS

Toby went to church that Sunday evening with great propriety, Saltash having departed, taking Bunny with him to spend the evening at Burchester. Her behaviour was a model of decorum throughout, but returning she begged Jake for a cigarette as a reward of virtue.

"It'll keep me good for hours," she assured him.

And Jake, who yearned for a smoke himself, could not find it in his heart to refuse.

"Don't overdo it, that's all!" he said. "Young Bunny is always at it, and it's very bad for him."

"Oh, I've got heaps more sense than Bunny," said Toby, with lofty assurance.

She smoked the cigarette with delicate appreciation though Jake's tobacco was by no means suited to a feminine palate, and they returned at peace with all the world.

Maud, who had been watching for them somewhat anxiously, saw with relief that her fears were groundless. Toby's serene countenance told her that all was well. No, she had not hated it so very badly after all. It was nothing to make a fuss about anyhow. She would go again if Jake liked.

She seemed in fact mildly amused by the idea that he could be so easily pleased, and asked him later with her chin in the air if there were any other odd jobs he would like her to perform.

But when Maud presently went to the piano, she came and sat on a low chair near her and listened in absolute stillness while she played. They were alone, and Maud played on and on, almost forgetful of her silent companion, suffering her fingers to wander in unison with her thoughts. All her life music had been her great joy and solace. She was not a brilliant musician as was Saltash, but she had the gift of so steeping herself in music that she could at times thereby express that which otherwise would have been unutterable—the hidden emotions of her soul.

Nearly an hour had passed thus before she remembered the silent little figure behind her, and then it was with a swift sense of compunction that she took her hands from the keys and turned.

"Toby dear, how boring this must be for you! Are you asleep? Why, child, what is it?"

With a start she saw that Toby's fair head was bowed upon her arms in an attitude of the most hopeless, the most bitter, despair.

She made a convulsive movement at the sound of Maud's voice, and in a moment lifted a white, strained face. "I am just a little tired, that's all," she said in a voice that quivered in spite of her. "Please go on playing! I like it."

Maud got up with quiet decision and went to her, but Toby was on her feet before she reached her. She stood with that look of a small, frightened animal so characteristic of her, her two hands nervously locked together.

Maud took her gently by the arm. "Shall we sit down and talk?" she said.

Toby yielded as it were involuntarily to the quiet touch. In her plain white blouse with the sailor collar she looked a mere child—a piteous, shy child.

Maud drew her down upon the sofa. All the mother in her went out to the forlorn little creature, yet for the moment she hesitated, as one afraid to strike a wrong note.

Toby was trembling a little and that fact decided her. She put a comforting arm about her.

"Do you know I am wondering how to make you happy?" she said.

Toby choked back a sob. "You are very kind, and I am stupid—stupid. I will try to be happy. I will really."

Maud began to draw her gently nearer, but Toby surprised her by a sudden passionate movement and slipped down on to the floor, hiding her face against her.

"I'm not fit—to speak to you!" she said in a vehement, strangled whisper. "I'm so bad—so bad. And I do—so—want to be good."

"My dear, dear child!" Maud said very tenderly.

Toby fought with herself for a space, her thin arms tightly clasping Maud's knees. At last, forcing back her distress she lifted her head.

"I'm so dreadfully sorry. Don't let it upset you! Don't—tell Jake!"

"You are quite safe with me, dear," Maud assured her. "But can't I help you?"

She knew even as she asked the question that Toby was not prepared to give her full confidence, and her own reserve shrank from asking for it.

Toby looked up at her with quivering lips. "Oh, you are good!" she said. "I want to be good—like you. But—I don't feel as if I ever shall be."

Maud laid a very gentle hand upon the blue-veined forehead. "I think goodness is only comparative at the best of times, dear," she said. "I don't feel that I am specially good. If I seem so to you, it is probably because my life holds very few temptations to be anything else."

"Ah!" Toby said, with a quick sigh. "And do you think people ought to be made to suffer for—for things they can't help?"

Maud shook her head. "I am afraid it often happens, dear."

"And yet you believe in God," Toby said.

"Yes, I believe in God." With quiet reverence Maud made answer. "And I am quite sure, Toby—quite, quite sure—that He never holds people responsible for the things they can't help."

"Then why—" began Toby restlessly.

Maud interrupted her. "No, no. Don't ask why! The world is as God made it. 'We are His workmanship.' Let Him do with us as He will!"

Toby's hands clenched. A frown that was curiously unchildlike drew the wide forehead. "Are we to be quite passive then? Just—slaves?"

"No," Maud said. "Servants—not slaves. There is a big difference. And every one of us—every one of us—has God's work to do in the world."

"And you think that bad people,—like me—can do anything?" said Toby.

Maud smiled a little. "Toby dear, I am quite sure that your work is waiting for you."

"Don't know where I'm going to begin," said Toby, with another sigh.

"My dear, you have begun." Maud's hand smoothed the fair hair. "Do you think I don't know how hard you try?"

Toby's eyes filled with quick tears. "But is it any good trying? Shall I ever get away from—from—" She broke off with a nervous, upward glance. "Shall I ever do more than begin?" she substituted rather piteously.

"My dear, yes." Very quietly, with absolute decision, Maud made answer. "You are young—too young to be hampered by anything that is past. You have your life before you, and—to a very great extent—you can make of it what you will. There is no need—believe me, there is no need—to look back. There is only time enough for the present. Just keep on trying! Make the very best you can of it! And you will find the future will come out all right."

"Will it?" said Toby rather dubiously.

Maud bent and kissed her. "Certainly it will, dear. Never doubt it! It may not be the future we plan for ourselves, but it will be the very best possible if we keep on doing our best with the present."

"Thank you," Toby murmured gratefully. "And you really think—you do really think—the past doesn't matter?"

Maud was silent for a few moments. The thought of Saltash was in her mind, his jesting evasions, his air of careless proprietorship. What was the thing in this child's past that she desired so earnestly to put away? She wondered if she ought to ask, but she could not.

A slight terror ran through the small, supplicating figure at her knee, and quick pity banished doubt. "I think it is entirely in our own hands, dear," she said gently. "The past can always be left behind if we work hard enough."

"Oh, thank you," Toby said again, and gathering Maud's hands impulsively into her own she kissed them. "I'm going to work very hard," she said. "You'll help me, I know. I've got to—to leave off turning somersaults—and learn to—curtsey."

She sent a shy smile into Maud's face, and almost in spite of herself Maud answered it. There was something oddly appealing, irresistibly attractive, about the child. She was so young and ardent, yet so pathetically anxious to please.

"Of course I will help you," she said. "I will always help you, my dear."

And Toby, emboldened, thrust warm arms about her neck, and held her close.



CHAPTER XI

THE BUTTERFLY

The perfect rose of a June sunset was slanting through the fir-woods of Burchester Park, making the red trunks glow. At the end of a long grass ride the new moon dipped to the west, a silver boat uptilted in a green transparent sea. A very great stillness lay upon all things—the eventide quiet of a summer day.

The dull thudding of a horse's hoofs along the ride scarcely seemed to break that magic silence. A frightened rabbit scurrying to cover made no sound at all. Somewhere a long way off a cuckoo was calling, tenderly, persistently. Somewhere near at hand a blackbird was warbling to his mate. But it all went into the enchanted silence, blending with the hush of the coming night. The man who rode the horse was conscious only of the peace of his surroundings. He doffed his cap to the moon in mock reverence, and carried it in his hand.

He came to the end of the ride and checked his animal on the brow of a steep descent. The park lay below him wrapped in mystery. On another slope a full mile away stood the Castle, ancient battlemented, starkly splendid, one westward-facing window burning as with fire. He sat motionless for a space, gazing across at it, his face a curious mask of conjecture and regret.

Finally, with great suddenness, he lifted his hand and smote his horse sharply on the flank. In a moment he was being precipitated at a headlong gallop down the hill. He went like the wind, and the enchanted wood was left behind.

Riding up the further slope to the Castle a few minutes later, he was hailed from behind and reined in to look back. A long-legged figure detached itself from a clump of trees that shadowed the bailiff's house and came racing in pursuit.

"Hi! Charlie! Don't be in such a deuce of a hurry! I'm going your way."

Saltash waited, not too patiently. "My good chap, you're dressed and I'm not! I shall be late for my guests."

"What's it matter?" scoffed Bunny breathlessly, reaching his side. "Maud and Jake don't count, and Toby is only a kid. I don't suppose she's ever been out to dine before."

"She's old enough to begin," remarked Saltash, pushing on at a walk.

"Well, she is beginning," said Bunny, with a grin as he strode beside him. "You haven't seen her for some weeks, have you? You'll see a difference, and so will her father."

"How?" said Saltash briefly.

Bunny's grin became more pronounced. "Oh, it's chiefly clothes. Maud is rather clever in that line, you know. I haven't seen a great deal of her lately. She's generally scampering round on horseback with Jake. But once or twice—with Maud—I've seen her look quite demure. She's really getting almost good-looking," he added dispassionately.

Saltash flung a swift look downwards. "Don't you approve?"

Bunny shrugged his shoulders. "I don't see enough of her to care either way. She's still a kid, you know,—quite a kid."

Saltash dropped the subject abruptly. "You're liking your job all right?"

"Rather!" Bunny made instant and enthusiastic reply. "It's just the sort of thing I was made for. Old Bishop's a brick. We're getting quite fond of one another."

"Sort of life you enjoy?" questioned Saltash.

"Oh, rather! I've always thought I'd like to manage a big estate. Wish I'd got one of my own."

"All right. I'll adopt you," laughed Saltash. "You shall be the son of my old age."

"Oh, don't be an ass!" protested Bunny. "Why on earth don't you get married?"

Saltash's brows twisted wryly. "Afraid I've lived too long, mon cher. If I had married your sister in the long ago, things might have been vastly different. As it is, I see no prospect of changing my state. Think it matters?"

"Well, it's rather a shame to let a good name die out," maintained Bunny. "And of course it's rot to talk like that about Maud. You can't pretend to have stayed in love with her all these years. There must have been heaps of others since then."

"No, I'm not pretending," said Saltash. "As you say, there have been—heaps of others." He made an odd gesture towards the western sky behind him. "There are always—heaps of stars, Bunny; but there's never more than one moon."

"Rot!" said Bunny.

"It is, isn't it?" said Saltash, and laughed with brief derision. "Well, I must get on. You can do the receiving if I'm late. Tell them I've been in town and only got back at mid-day! You needn't bother about Larpent. I'll see to him."

He flicked his horse's neck and was off with the words.

Bunny, striding after, watched him ride swiftly up the slope till the fir-trees of the avenue hid him from view.

"Queer fish!" he murmured to himself. "Very queer fish!"

He entered the Castle a little later by the great stone hall and found it lighted from end to end as if in preparation for a reception. He had known the place for years, but it always struck him afresh with its magnificence. It looked like a palace of kings. There were some beautiful pieces of statuary both in marble and bronze, and upon each of these a shaded light shone.

At the end of the hall a wide oak staircase that branched mid-way led to an oak gallery that ran round three sides of the hall, and where it divided a high door stood open, showing a lighted room beyond. Bunny left his coat with the silent-stepping butler and went straight up the shallow stairs.

He entered the stately apartment at the top expecting to find it empty. It was the drawing-room—a vast and lofty chamber with satin-covered walls, superbly furnished with old French furniture in royal blue velvet and gilt. There was a further room beyond, but Bunny did not pursue his way thither, for a man in evening-dress turned suddenly from one of the great southward-facing windows and moved to meet him.

He was a gaunt man with a trim beard and the eyes of the sea-farer, and he walked with a slight roll as if accustomed to pitching decks.

"Sir Bernard Brian?" he said.

Bunny held out his hand. "You're Captain Larpent, of course. I wonder we've never met before. I've heard of you often enough. Sorry you had such bad luck with The Night Moth."

"Oh, damnable luck!" said the sailor gloomily.

"Still you came out of it alive," said Bunny consolingly. "And your daughter too. Things might have been worse."

Larpent grunted. "Think so?"

"She does anyway," said Bunny, with a grin.

Larpent grunted again. "Shipboard is not the place for a girl," he remarked.

"Toby seems more at home on horseback than anywhere else," said Bunny.

Larpent gave him a keen look. "Oh, she still goes by that name, does she?" he said.

"What do you call her?" said Bunny.

Larpent snapped his fingers curtly.

"Does she come for that?" asked Bunny.

"Usually," said Larpent.

"Then she's more docile than I thought she was," commented Bunny.

Larpent said nothing. He propped himself against the high mantelpiece and stared morosely out before him to the pine-clad slopes of the park.

"How you must hate being ashore!" said Bunny.

"Why do you say that?" Larpent scarcely removed his moody gaze.

"You look as if you did." There was a hint of chaff in Bunny's voice. He surveyed the gaunt man with humorous interest, seated on one of the gilt chairs with his hands clasped round his knee. "I suppose Saltash will buy another yacht, won't he?"

Larpent's eyes came definitely down to him, grimly contemptuous. "Do you also suppose that would be the same thing?" he said.

Bunny flushed a little, but he accepted the rebuff with a good grace. "I don't know, sir. You see, I've never been the captain of a yacht."

Larpent's hard visage relaxed a little. He resumed his contemplation of the distant pine-woods in silence.

Bunny got up whistling and began to stroll about the room. He was never still for long. He was not very familiar with the state reception-rooms of Burchester Castle and he found plenty to interest him.

Several minutes passed, and he had almost forgotten the silent man who leaned against the fire-place, when suddenly Larpent came out of his melancholy reverie and spoke.

"How long has the child been with these Boltons?"

Bunny paused at the further end of the room. "Let's see! It must be some time now—practically ever since the wreck. It must be about six weeks. Yes; she came just before I left to take on this job—the week of the Graydown Meetings." Bunny's eyes kindled at the memory. "We had some sport the day she came, I remember; quite a little flutter. In fact we soared so high that I thought we were going to create a sensation, and then"—Bunny whistled dramatically—"down we came with a rush, and I was broke!" He began to laugh. "It's rather a shame to tell you, isn't it? But you won't give me away? We've never done it since."

"I shan't give anyone away," said Larpent grimly.

"Good! You're a sport, I can see."

The genuine appreciation in Bunny's voice brought an icy glimmer of amusement to the elder man's eyes, but he made no verbal comment.

Again a silence fell, and Bunny came strolling back, a smile on his handsome boyish face.

"Fine place this," he remarked presently. "It's a pity Saltash is here so little. He only comes about three times a year, and then only for a couple of nights at a time. There's heaps of game in the woods and no one to shoot it."

"He probably knows his own business best," remarked Larpent.

"Oh, probably. But the place is wasted on him for all that." Bunny spoke with a frown. "Why on earth he doesn't marry and settle down I can't think. Can't you persuade him to?"

"No," said Larpent quite definitely.

Bunny glanced at him. "I don't know why not. I know he's considered to have gone the pace a bit, but after all he's no worse than a hundred others. Why the devil shouldn't he marry?"

Larpent shrugged his shoulders. "Don't ask me!" he said.

"Well, he ought to," maintained Bunny. "If you have any influence with him, you ought to persuade him to."

"I haven't," said Larpent.

Bunny flung away impatiently. "It's a confounded shame—a gorgeous family place like this and no one but servants to live in it!"

"It is, isn't it?" gibed Saltash, unexpectedly entering from the further door. "Large enough for fifty wives, eh, Bunny? Well, as I said before, you get married and I'll adopt you. It'll save me a lot of trouble. You're so keen on recommending the marriage medicine to other people. Try it yourself, and see how you like it!"

He walked straight down the long room with the words, passing both Larpent and Bunny on his way, pausing by neither. "I like to hear you two discussing my case," he jested. "You, Bunny, who have never had the great disease, and Larpent who has never got over it!"

He approached the open door that led out upon the great staircase, the jest still on his lips and the laughter in his eyes. He reached it and stretched out both hands with a fine gesture of greeting.

"Welcome to my poor hovel!" he said. "Madam, I kneel at your feet."

A clear high laugh answered him from below, and both of his companions turned sharply at the sound.

A figure in white, girlish, fresh as the morning, sprang suddenly into view. Her eager face had the delicate flush of a wild rose. The hair clustered about her temples in tender ringlets of gold. Her eyes, blue and shining, gave her the look of a child just awakened from happy sleep—a child that expects to be lifted up and kissed.

"By—Jove!" murmured Bunny under his breath, staring openly. "By—Jove!"

And these words failed him. He had never been so astounded in his life. This girl—this funny little Toby with the sharp features and pointed chin, the girl-urchin with whom he had chaffed and played—was actually a beauty, and till that amazing moment he had not realized the fact.

As he went forward to greet her, he saw that Larpent was staring also, and he chuckled inwardly at the sight. Decidedly it must be a worse shock for Larpent than it was for himself, he reflected. For at least he had seen her in the chrysalis stage, though most certainly he had never expected this wonderful butterfly to emerge.

Maud, of course, was the witch who had worked the marvellous transformation, Maud with her tender mother-wisdom that divined so much. He looked at her now, and wondered as he met her smile if she fully realized what she had done.

Across the wonder came Saltash's quizzing voice—"Mais, Nonette, Nonette, you are a vision for the gods!"

And a curious hot pang that was like a physical stab went through Bunny. How dared Charlie use that caressing tone to her—as though she were a mere ordinary woman to be trifled with and cajoled? He had never disapproved of Saltash before, but for that moment he almost hated him. She was too young, too sweet, too—different—to be treated thus.

And then he was standing close to her, and Saltash, laughing, pushed him forward. "Do you know this fellow, ma chere?"

The wide blue eyes came up to his with a pleased smile of comradeship. "Why, it's Bunny!" the clear voice said. "I'm so glad you're here too—in this ogre's castle."

Her hand gave his a little confiding squeeze, and Bunny's fingers gripped in answer. He realized suddenly that she was nervous, and all the ready chivalry of his nature rose up to protect her. For a moment or two he kept her hand close in his own.

Then Saltash airily took it from him. "Come!" he said lightly. "Here is someone else you ought to know!"

He wheeled her round with the words. She came face to face with Larpent. There was an instant of dead silence, then Toby uttered a little quivering laugh.

"Hullo—Captain!" she said

"Hullo!" said Larpent, paused a moment, then abruptly took her by the chin, and, stooping, touched the wide brow with his lips. "All right?" he asked gruffly.

Toby gave a little gasp; she seemed to be trembling. But in a second she laughed again, with more assurance. "Yes, all right, captain," she said. "I—I—I'm glad to see you again. You all right too?"

Bunny, looking on, made the abrupt discovery that Larpent also was embarrassed. It was Saltash who answered for him, covering the moment's awkwardness with the innate ease of manner which never seemed to desert him.

"Of course he's all right. Don't you worry about him! We're going to buy him another boat as soon as the insurance Company have done talking. Maud, this is my captain, the finest yachtsman you've ever met and my very good friend."

He threw his merry, dare-devil glance at Larpent as he made the introduction, and turned immediately to Jake.

"You two ought to get on all right. He disapproves of me almost as strongly as you do, and—like you—he endures me, he knows not wherefore!"

Jake's red-brown eyes held a smile that made his rugged face look kindly as he made reply. "Maybe we both have the sense to spot a winner when we see one, my lord."

Saltash's brows went up derisively. "And maybe you'll both lose good money on the gamble before you've done."

"I think not," said Jake, in his steady drawl. "I've known many a worse starter than you get home on the straight."

Saltash laughed aloud, and Toby turned with flushed cheeks and lifted eyes, alight and ardent, to her hero's face.

Saltash's glance flashed round to her, the monkeyish grin still about his mouth, and from her to Bunny who stood behind. He did not speak for a moment. Then: "No; you've never known a worse starter, Jake," he said; "and if I do get home on the straight it will be thanks to you."

Very curiously from that moment Bunny found his brief resentment dead.



CHAPTER XII

THE OGRE'S CASTLE

"Let's go out into the garden!" said Bunny urgently.

Dinner was over, and Maud and Saltash were at the piano at the far end of the great room. Jake and Larpent were smoking in silent companionship at a comfortable distance. Toby, who had been very quiet the whole evening, sat silently apart in a low chair with her hands clasped about her knees. Bunny alone was restless.

She lifted her eyes to him as he prowled near her, and they held a hint of mischief. At his murmured words she rose.

"You'd like to?" he questioned.

She nodded. "Of course; love it. You know the way. You lead!"

Bunny needed no second bidding. He went straight to the tall door and held it open for her. Toby, very slim and girlish in her white raiment, cocked her chin and walked out in state. But the moment they were alone she turned upon him a face brimful of laughter.

"Oh, now we can enjoy ourselves! I've been feeling so proper all the evening. Quick! Where shall we go?"

"Into the garden," said Bunny. "Or wait! Come up on to the battlements! It's ripping up there."

She thrust her hand eagerly into his. "I shall love that. Which way do we go?"

"Through the music-room," said Bunny.

He caught and held her hand. They ran up one of the wide stairways that branched north and south to the Gallery. Saltash's music followed them from the drawing-room as they went. He was playing a haunting Spanish love-song, and Toby shivered and quickened her pace.

They reached another oak door which Bunny opened, drawing her impetuously forward. "This is Charlie's own particular sanctum. Rather a ripping place, isn't it? He's got a secret den that leads somewhere out of it, but no one knows how to get in."

He led her over a polished oak floor into a long, almost empty apartment with turreted windows at each end, and a grand piano near one of them that shone darkly in the shaded lamplight. Underfoot were Persian rugs, exquisite of tint and rich of texture. Two or three deep divans completed the furniture of the room giving it a look of Eastern magnificence that strangely lured the senses.

"Rather like a harem I always think," said Bunny, pausing to look round. "There's an Arabian Nights sort of flavour about it that rather gets hold of one. Why? You're shivering! Surely you're not cold!"

"No, I'm not cold," said Toby. "But I don't like this place. It's creepy. Let's go!"

But Bunny lingered. "What's the matter with it? It's luxurious enough. I've always rather liked coming in here."

Toby made a small but vehement gesture of protest. "Then you like horrid things," she said. "There's no air in here;—only—only—scent."

Bunny sniffed. "Well, it's quite subtle anyhow; not enough to upset anybody. Rather a seductive perfume, what?"

She surprised him by stamping in sudden fury upon the bare floor. "It's beastly! It's hateful! How can you like it? It—it—it's bad! It's—damnable!"

Bunny stared at her. "Well, Charlie designed it anyway. It's the one corner in the whole Castle that is individually his. What on earth is there that you don't like about it?"

"Everything—everything!" declared Toby passionately. "I don't want to stay here another minute. Show me the way out!"

She spoke with such imperiousness that Bunny judged it best to comply. He showed her a door in the eastern wall that was draped by a heavy red curtain.

"You can get up on to the ramparts that way. But wait a minute while I find the switch! What are you running away from? There isn't a bogey-man anywhere."

Toby drew in her breath sharply with a nervous glance over her shoulder. "I think it's a dreadful place," she said. "I want to get out into the air."

Bunny opened the door, and a dark passage gaped before them. "This looks much more eerie," he observed, feeling about for a switch. "Do you really like this better?"

"Much better," said Toby, going boldly into the darkness.

"Don't believe there is a switch," said Bunny, striking a match. "No, there isn't! How beastly medieval! Look here! Wait while I go and get an electric torch!"

"No, no! Let's feel our way! I'm sure we can," urged Toby. "Come on! It'll be fun. Shut the door!"

The spirit of adventure seized upon Bunny. He let the door swing closed and caught her hand again.

Toby's delighted chuckle told him that she had fully recovered her equilibrium. Her fingers twined closely about his own.

"Now we shall have some fun!" she said.

They went forward together for a few yards in total darkness. Then, from somewhere high above them a faint light filtered through.

"That's on the stairs," said Bunny. "One of those window-slits through which in the old hospitable days all comers were potted at. Look out how you go!"

The words were scarcely uttered when they both kicked against the lowest stair and blundered forward. A squeal of laughter came from Toby. Bunny said "Damn!" with much heartiness and then laughed also.

"I knew it would be fun," said Toby. "Are you hurt?"

He raised her with a strong young arm. "No, I'm all right. Are you?"

"Yes. I'm loving it. What happens next? Do the stairs wind round and round till we get to the top?"

"Yes. There are about six hundred of 'em. Feel equal to it?"

"Equal to anything," said Toby promptly. "Let me go first!"

"Why don't I go and get a light?" said Bunny.

"Because you're not to. Because it's heaps more fun without. Besides, there's lots of light up there. Now then? Are you ready? Come on! Let's go!"

Indomitable resolution sounded in Toby's voice. She drew herself free from Bunny's hold, and began to mount.

"You know it's haunted, don't you?" said Bunny cheerily. "A beautiful lady was once captured and imprisoned in this turret in the dear old days when everyone did those things. She had to choose between throwing herself from the battlements and marrying her wicked captor—an ancestor of Charlie's, by the way. She did the latter and then died of a broken heart. They always did, you know. Her poor little ghost has wandered up and down this stair ever since."

"Idiot!" said Toby tersely.

"Who?" said Bunny. "And why?"

"The woman. Why didn't she throw herself over? It would have been much easier."

"Perhaps she didn't find it so," said Bunny. "And she'd doubtless have done the haunting stunt even if she had."

"Well, then, why didn't she marry the brute and—and—give him hell?" said Toby tensely.

Bunny uttered a shout of laughter that echoed and re-echoed up and down the winding stair.

"Is that what you would have done?"

"I'd have done one or the other," said Toby.

"By Jove, how bloodthirsty you sound!" ejaculated Bunny. "Are you in earnest by any chance?"

"Yes, I am in earnest." There was a note of bitter challenge in Toby's reply. "If a woman hasn't the spunk to defend herself, she's better dead."

"I agree with you there," said Bunny with decision. "But I don't know how you come to know it."

"Oh, I know a lot of things," said Toby's voice in the darkness, and this time it sounded oddly cold and desolate as if the stone walls around them had somehow deadened it.

He put out a hand and touched her, for she seemed in some fashion to have withdrawn from him, to have become remote as the echoes about them. "There are heaps of things you don't know anyway," he said. "You're only a kid after all."

"Think so?" said Toby.

She evaded his hand, flitting up before him towards that grim slit in the wall through which the dim half-light of the summer night vaguely entered. Her light figure became visible to him as she reached it. There came to him a swift memory of the butterfly-beauty that had so astounded him earlier in the evening.

"No, I don't," he said. "You're past that stage. What on earth has Maud been doing to you? Do you know when you first came into the drawing-room tonight I hardly knew you?"

Toby's light laugh came back to him. She was like a white butterfly flitting before him in the twilight. "I wondered what you'd say. I've given up jumping rosebushes, and I'm learning to be respectable. It's rather fun sometimes. Maud is very good to me—and I love Jake, don't you?"

"Yes, he's a brick; always was," said Bunny enthusiastically. "I'd back him every time. But, I say. Don't get too respectable, will you? Somehow it doesn't suit you."

Again he heard her laugh in the darkness—a quick, rather breathless laugh. "I don't think I'll ever be that," she said. "Do you?"

"I don't know," said Bunny. "But you looked scared to death when you came in—as if you were mounted on a horse that was much too high for you. I believe you were afraid of that old daddy of yours."

"I am rather," said Toby. "You see, I don't know him very well. And I'm not sure he likes me."

"Of course he likes you," said Bunny.

"Why? I don't know why he should."

"Everyone does," said Bunny, with assurance.

"Don't be silly!" said Toby.

They were past the slit in the wall, and were winding upwards now towards another. Bunny postponed argument, finding he needed all his breath for the climb. The steps had become narrower and more steeply spiral than before. His companion mounted so swiftly that he found it difficult to keep close to her. The ascent seemed endless.

Again they passed a window-slit, and Bunny suddenly awoke to the fact that the flying figure in front was trying to out-distance him. It came to him in a flash of intuition. She was daring him, she was fooling him. Some imp of mischief had entered into her. She was luring him to pursuit; and like the whirling of a torch in a dark place, the knowledge first dazzled, and then drew him. All his pulses beat in a swift crescendo. There was a considerable mixture of Irish deviltry in Bunny Brian's veins, and anything in the nature of a challenge fired him. He uttered a wild whoop that filled the eerie place with fearful echoes, and gave chase.

It was the maddest race he had ever run. Toby fled before him like the wind, up and up, round and round the winding stair, fleet-footed, almost as though on wings, leaving him behind. He followed, fiercely determined, putting forth his utmost strength, sometimes stumbling on the uneven stairs, yet always leaping onward, urged to wilder effort by the butterfly elusiveness of his quarry. Once he actually had her within his reach, and then he stumbled and she was gone. He heard her maddening laughter as she fled.

The ascent seemed endless. His heart was pumping, but he would not slacken. She should never triumph over him, this mocking imp, this butterfly-girl, who from the first had held him with a fascination he could not fathom. He would make her pay for her audacity. He would teach her that he was more than a mere butt for her drollery. He would show her—

A door suddenly banged high above him. He realized that she had reached the top of the turret and burst out upon the ramparts. A very curious sensation went through him. It was almost a feeling of fear. She was such a wild little creature, and her mood was at its maddest. The chill of the place seemed to wrap him round. He felt as if icy fingers had clutched his heart.

It was all a joke of course—only a joke! But jokes sometimes ended disastrously, and Toby—Toby was not an ordinary person. She was either a featherbrain or a genius. He did not know which. Perhaps there was no very clear dividing line between the two. She was certainly extraordinary. He wished he had not accepted her challenge. If he had refused to follow, she would soon have abandoned her absurd flight through the darkness.

It was absurd. They had both been absurd to come to this eerie place without a light. Somehow her disappearance, the clanging of that door, had sobered him very effectually. He cursed himself for a fool as he groped his way upwards. The game had gone too far. He ought to have foreseen.

And then suddenly he blundered into an iron-clamped door and swore again. Yes, this thing was beyond a joke.

The door resisted him, and he wrestled with it furiously as though it had been a living thing obstructing his passage.

He had begun to think that she must have bolted it on the outside when abruptly it yielded to his very forcible persuasion, and he stumbled headlong forth into the open starlight. He was out upon the ramparts, and dim wooded park-lands stretched away to the sea before his dazzled eyes.

The first thing that struck him was the emptiness of the place. It seemed to catch him by the throat. There was something terrible about it.

Behind him the door clanged, and the sound seemed the only sound in all that wonderful June night. It had a fateful effect in the silence—like the tolling of a bell. Something echoed to it in his own heart, and he knew that he was afraid.

Desperately he flung his fear aside and moved forward to the parapet. The wall was thick, but between the battlements it was only the height of his knee. Below was depth—sheer depth—stark emptiness.

He looked over and saw the stone terrace dimly lit by the stars far below him. The gardens were a blur of darkness out of which he vaguely discerned the glimmer of the lake among its trees.

His heart was beating suffocatingly; he struggled to subdue his panting breath. She was somewhere close to him of course—of course. But the zest of the chase had left him. He felt dizzy, frightened, sick. He tried to raise his voice to call her, and then realized with a start of self-ridicule that it had failed him. He leaned against the parapet and resolutely pulled himself together.

Then he went forward and found himself in a stone passage, actually on the castle wall, between two parapets; the one on his left towering above the inner portion of the castle with its odd, uneven roofs of stone, the one on his right still sheer above the terrace—a drop of a hundred feet or more.

The emptiness and the silence seemed to strike at him with a nebulous hostility as he went. He had a vague sense of intrusion, of being in a forbidden place. The blood was no longer hot in his veins. He even shivered in the warmth of the summer night as he followed the winding walk between the battlements.

But he was his own master now, and as he moved forward through the glimmering starlight he called to her:

"Toby! Toby, I say! Come out! I'm not playing."

He felt as if the silence mocked him, and again that icy construction about the heart made him catch his breath. He put up a hand to his brow and found it wet.

"Toby!" he cried again, and this time he did not attempt to keep the urgency out of his voice. "The game's up. Come back!"

She did not answer him, neither did she come; but he had a strong conviction that she heard. A throb of anger went through him. He strode forward with decision. He knew that the battlement walk ended on the north side of the Castle in a blank wall, built centuries before as a final defence from an invading enemy. Only by scaling this wall could the eastern portion be approached. He would find her here. She could not possibly escape. Something of confidence came back to him as he remembered this. She could not elude him much longer.

He quickened his stride. His face was grim. She had carried the thing too far, and he would let her know it. He rounded the curve of the castle wall. He must be close to her now. And then suddenly he stopped dead. For he heard her mocking laughter, and it came from behind him, from the turret through which he had gained the ramparts.

He wheeled round with something like violence and began to retrace his steps. He had never been so baffled before, and he was angry,—hotly angry.

He rounded the curve once more, and approached the turret. His eyes were accustomed to the dim half-light, but still he could not see her. Fuming, he went back the whole distance along the ramparts till he came to the iron-clamped door that had banged behind him. He put forth an impatient hand to open it, for it was obvious that she must have eluded him by hiding behind it, and now she was probably on the stair. And then, very suddenly, from far behind him, in the direction of the northern wall, he heard her laugh again.

He swung about in a fury, almost too incensed to be amazed. She had the wings of a Mercury, it was evident; but he would catch her—he would catch her now, or perish in the attempt. Once more he traversed the stony promenade between the double line of battlements, searching each embrasure as he went.

All the way back to the wall on the north side he pursued his way with fierce intention, inwardly raging, outwardly calm. He reached the obstructing wall, and found nothing. The emptiness came all about him again. The ghostly quiet of the place clung like a tangible veil. She had evaded him again. He was powerless.

But at that point his wrath suddenly burst into flame, the hotter and the fiercer for its long restraint. He wheeled in his tracks with furious finality and abandoned his quest.

His intention was to go straight down by the way he had come and leave her to play her will-o'-the-wisp game in solitude. It would soon pall upon her, he was assured; but in any case he would no longer dance to her piping. She had fooled him to the verge of frenzy.

Again he rounded the curve of the wall and came to the door of the turret. A great bastion of stone rose beside this, and as he reached it a small white figure darted forward from its shadow with dainty, butterfly movements, pulled at the heavy oak door and held it open with an elaborate gesture for him to pass.

It was a piece of exquisite daring, and with an older man it would have taken effect. Saltash would have laughed his quizzing, cynical laugh and accepted his defeat with royal grace. But Bunny was young and vehement of impulse, and the flame of his anger still scorched his soul with a heat intolerable. She had baffled him, astounded him, humiliated him, and his was not a nature to endure such treatment tamely.

He hung on his stride for a single moment, then hotly he turned and snatched her into his arms.



CHAPTER XIII

THE END OF THE GAME

She cried out sharply as he caught her, and then she struggled and fought like a mad creature for freedom. But Bunny held her fast. He had been hard pressed, and now that the strain was over, all the pent passion of that long stress had escaped beyond control. He held her,—at first as a boy might hold a comrade who had provoked him to exasperation; then, as desperately she resisted him, a new element suddenly rushed like fire through his veins, and he realized burningly, overwhelmingly, that for the first time in his life he held a woman in his arms.

It came to him like a blinding revelation, and forth-with it seemed to him that he stepped into a new world. She had tried him too far, had thrown him off his balance. He was unfit for this further and infinitely greater provocation. His senses swam. The touch of her intoxicated him as though he had drunk a potent draught from some goblet of the gods. He heard himself laugh passionately at her puny effort to resist him and the next moment she was at his mercy. He was pressing fevered kisses upon her gasping, quivering lips.

But she fought against him still. Though he kissed her, she would have none of it. She struck at him, battering him frantically with her hands, stamping wildly with her feet, till he literally swung her off the ground, holding her slender body against his breast.

"You little madcap!" he said, with his hot lips against her throat. "How dare you? Do you think I'd let you go—now?"

The quick passion of his voice or the fiery possession of his hold arrested her. She suddenly ceased to battle with him, and stiffened in his grasp as if turned to stone.

"Let me go!" she said tensely.

"I will not," said Bunny.

He was mad with the fever of youth; he held her with a fierce exultation. There could be no returning now, nor did he wish to return.

"You little wild butterfly!" he said, and kissed the throbbing white throat again. "I've caught you now and you can't escape."

"You've—had your revenge," Toby flung back gaspingly. "You—you—you're a skunk if you take any more."

Oddly that sobered him as any protest more feminine would have failed to do. He set her on her feet, but he held her still.

"I haven't done with you," he said, with a certain doggedness.

"Oh, I know that," she returned very bitterly. "You're like all the men. You can't play fair. Men don't know how."

That stung him. "Fair or unfair, you've done all the playing so far," he said. "If you thought I was such a tame fool as to put up with it—well, that's not my fault."

"No, it's never your fault," said Toby. She made a little vehement movement to extricate herself, but finding him obdurate, abandoned the attempt. "You're not a fool, Bunny Brian. You're a beast and a coward,—there!"

"Be careful!" warned Bunny, his dark eyes gleaming ominously.

But she uttered a laugh of high defiance. "Oh, I'm not afraid of you. You're not full-grown yet. You're ashamed of yourself already."

He coloured deeply at the taunt, but he maintained his hold upon her.

"All right," he said. "Say I did it all! It doesn't matter how you put it. The fact remains."

"What fact?" said Toby swiftly.

He clasped her a little closer. "Well,—do you think I'm going to let you go—after this?"

She caught her breath sharply. "What do you mean? I—I—I don't know what you mean!"

There was quick agitation in her voice. Again she sought to free herself, and again he frustrated her. But the violence had gone out of his hold. There was even a touch of dignity about him as he made reply.

"I mean, you little wild butterfly, that now I've got you, I'm going to keep you. You'll have to marry me and make the best of me."

"Marry you!" said Toby as one incredulous.

"Yes. What's the matter with the idea? Don't you want to?" Bunny's good-looking young face came close to hers. He was laughing, but there was a half-coaxing note in his voice as well.

Toby was silent for a moment. Then: "You're mad!" she said tersely.

"I'm not!" said Bunny. "I'm perfectly serious. Don't you understand that when this kind of thing gets hold of you, there's no getting away from it? We can't possibly go back to where we were before—behave as if nothing had happened. You wouldn't want to, would you?"

There was a hint of pleading in his tone now. Toby made a curious little gesture that seemed to express a measure of reassurance. But, "I don't know," she said somewhat dubiously.

"You aren't angry, are you?" said Bunny softly.

She hesitated. "I was."

"Yes, but not now—when you've begun to realize what a jolly thing life together would be. It isn't as if we'd never met before. We're pals already."

"Yes; we're pals," said Toby, but still her voice was dubious.

"I say, be a sport!" the boy urged suddenly. "You said you weren't afraid of me. Don't chuck the best thing in life for want of a little ordinary courage!"

"What is—the best thing in life?" said Toby.

His hold grew close again, but it remained gentle. "You marry me," he said, "and I'll show you!"

There was something sublime rather than ridiculous in his assurance. Toby caught her breath again as if about to laugh, and then quite suddenly, wholly unexpectedly, she began to cry.

"You poor little darling!" said Bunny.

She leaned her head upon his shoulder, fighting great sobs that threatened to overwhelm her. It was not often that Toby cried, and this was no mere child's distress. Indeed there was about it something that filled her companion with a curious kind of awe. He held her closely and comfortingly, but for some reason he could not speak to her, could not even attempt to seek the cause of her trouble. As his sister had done before him, though almost unconsciously, he sensed a barrier that he might not pass.

Toby regained her self-command at last, stood for a space in silence, her face still hidden, then abruptly raised it and uttered a little quivering laugh.

"You great big silly!" she said. "I'm not going to marry you, so there! Now let me go!"

Her tone and action put him instantly at his ease. This was the Toby he knew.

"Yes, you are going to marry me. And I shan't let you go," he said. "So there!"

She looked him straight in the face. "No, Bunny!" she said, with a little catch in her breath. "You're a dear to think of it, but it won't do."

"Why not?" demanded Bunny.

She hesitated.

He squeezed her shoulders. "Tell me why not!"

"I don't want to tell you," said Toby.

"You've got to," he said with decision.

In the dimness his eyes looked into hers. A little shiver went through Toby. "I don't want to," she said again.

"Go on!" commanded Bunny, autocratically.

She turned suddenly and set her hands against his breast. "Well then, because I'm years and years older than you are—"

"Rot!" interjected Bunny.

"And—I'm not good enough for you!" finished Toby rather tremulously.

"Rats!" said Bunny.

"No, it isn't rats." She contradicted him rather piteously. "You've turned a silly game into deadly earnest, and you shouldn't—you shouldn't. I wouldn't have done it if I'd known. It's such a mistake—it's always such a great mistake—to do that. You say we can't go back to where we were before, but we can—we can. Let's try—anyway!"

"We can't," said Bunny with decision. "And there's no reason why we should. Look here! You don't want to marry anyone else, do you?"

"I don't want to marry at all," said Toby.

He laughed at that. "Darling, of course you'll marry. Come! You might as well have me first as last. You won't get any other fellow to suit you half as well. What? Say you'll have me! Come, you've got to. You don't hate me, do you?"

Again the pleading note was in his voice. She responded to it almost involuntarily. Her hands slipped upwards to his shoulders.

"But—I'm not good enough," she said again, catching back a sob.

His arms enfolded her, closely and tenderly. "Oh, skip that!" he said. "I won't listen."

"You—you—you're very silly," murmured Toby, with her head against his neck.

"No. I'm not. I'm very sensible. Look here, we're engaged now, aren't we?" said Bunny.

"No—no—we're not!" Her voice came muffled against his coat. "You're not to think of such a thing for ages and ages and ages."

"Oh, rot!" he said again with impatience. "I hate a waiting game—especially when there's nothing to wait for. You're not going to give me the go-by now."

His face was close to her again. She put her hand against his chin and softly pushed it away. "Bunny!" she said.

"Well, dear?" He stood, not yielding, but suffering her check.

"Bunny!" she said again, speaking with obvious effort. "I've got to say something. You must listen—just for a minute. Jake,—Jake won't want you to be engaged to me."

"What?" Bunny started a little, as one who suddenly remembers a thing forgotten. "Jake!" Then hotly. "What the devil has it got to do with Jake?"

"Stop!" said Toby. "Jake's quite right. He knows. He—he's older than you are. You—you—you'd better ask him."

"Ask Jake!" Bunny's wrath exploded. "I'm my own master. I can marry whom I like. What on earth should I ask Jake for?"

Toby uttered a little sigh. "You needn't if you don't want to. But if you're wise, you will. He understands. You wouldn't. You see, I've been to a lot of different schools, Bunny—foreign ones—and I've learnt a heap of—rather funny things. That's why I'm so much older than you are. That's why I don't want to get married—as most girls do. I never ought to marry. I know too much."

"But you'll marry me?" he said swiftly.

"I don't know," she said. "Not anyway yet. If—if you can stick to me for six months—I—p'raps I'll think about it. But I think you'll come to your senses long before then, Bunny." A desolate little note of humour sounded in her voice. "And if you do, you'll be so glad not to have to throw me over."

"You're talking rot," he interposed.

"No, I'm not. I'm talking sense—ordinary common sense. I wouldn't get engaged to any man on the strength of what happened to-night. You hadn't even thought of me in that way when we came up here."

"I'm not so sure of that," said Bunny. "Anyway, the mischief is done now. And you needn't be afraid I shall throw you over because—" an unexpected throb came into his voice—"I know now I've simply got to have you."

Toby sighed again. "But if—if I'm not worth waiting for, I'm not worth having," she said.

"But why wait?" argued Bunny.

"For a hundred reasons. You're not really in love with me for one thing." Toby spoke with conviction.

"Yes, I am." Stubbornly he contradicted her.

"No, you're not. Listen, Bunny! Love isn't just a passion-flower that blooms in a single night and then fades. You're too young really to understand, but I know—I know. Love is more like a vine. It takes a long while to ripen and come to perfection, and it has a lot to go through first."

Again a sense of strangeness came to Bunny. Surely this was a grown woman speaking! This was not the wild little creature he knew. But—perhaps it was from perversity—her warning only served to strengthen his determination.

"You can go on arguing till midnight," he said, "you won't convince me. But look here, if you don't want anyone to know, we'll keep it to ourselves for a little while. Will that satisfy you? We'll meet and have some jolly times together in private. Will that make you any happier?"

"We shan't be engaged?" questioned Toby.

"Not if you'll kiss me without," said Bunny generously.

"Oh, I don't mind kissing you—" she lifted her lips at once, "if it doesn't mean anything."

He stooped swiftly and met them with his own. His kiss was close and lingering, it held tenderness; and in a moment her arms crept round his neck and she clung to him as she returned it. He felt a sob run through her slight frame as he held her though she shed no tears and made no sound, and he was stirred to a deeper chivalry than he had ever known before.

"It does mean one thing, darling," he said softly. "It means that we love each other, doesn't it?"

She did not answer him for a moment; then: "It may mean that," she whispered back. "I don't know—very much about—love. No one ever—really—loved me before."

"I love you," he said. "I love you."

"Thank you," she murmured.

He held her still. "You'll never run away from me again? Promise!"

She shook her head promptly with a faint echo of the elfin laughter that had so maddened him a little earlier. "No, I won't promise. But I'll show you where I was hiding if you like. Shall I?"

"All right. Show me!" he said.

She freed herself from him with a little spring, and turned to the stone buttress against which he had found her. He followed her closely, half afraid of losing her again, but she did not attempt to elude him.

"See!" she said, with a funny little chuckle. "I found this ledge."

The ledge she indicated was on a level with the parapet and not more than six inches wide. It ran square with the buttress, which on the outer side dropped sheer to the terrace.

Bunny looked and turned sick. "You never went along there!" he said.

She laughed again. "Yes, I did. It's quite easy if you slide your feet. I'll show you."

"You'll do nothing of the sort!" He grabbed her fiercely. "What in heaven's name were you thinking of? How did you learn to do these things?"

She did not answer him. "I wanted to tease you," she said lightly. "And I did it too, didn't I? I pretended I was Andromeda when I got round the corner, but no Perseus came to save me. Only an angry dragon ramped about behind."

Bunny stared at her as if he thought her bewitched. "But you were over by that north wall once. I'll swear you were over there."

"Oh, don't swear!" she said demurely. "It's so wrong. I wasn't there really. I only sent my voice that way to frighten you."

"Good heavens!" gasped Bunny.

She laughed again with gay insouciance. "Haven't I given you a splendid evening's entertainment? Well, it's all over now, and the curtain's down. Let's go!"

She turned with her hand in his and led him back to the turret-door.

Reaching it, he sought to detain her. "You'll never do it again? Promise—promise!"

"I won't promise anything," she said lightly.

"Ah, but you must!" he insisted. "Toby, you might have killed yourself."

Her laugh suddenly had a mocking sound. "Oh, no! I shall never kill myself on Lord Saltash's premises," she said.

"Why do you say that?" questioned Bunny.

"Because—que voulez-vous?—he would want me neither dead nor alive," she made reckless answer.

"A good thing too!" declared Bunny stoutly.

The echoes of Toby's laughter as she went down the chill, dark stairway had an eerie quality that sent an odd shiver through his heart. Somehow it made him think of the unquiet spirit that was said to haunt the place—a spirit that wandered alone—always alone—in the utter desolation.



PART III



CHAPTER I

THE VIRTUOUS HERO

"How long is this absurd farce to go on?" said Larpent.

"Aren't you enjoying yourself?" grinned Saltash.

Larpent looked sardonic.

Saltash took up the whisky decanter. "My worthy buccaneer, you don't know when you're lucky. If I had a reputation like yours—" He broke off, still grinning. "Well, it's no use crying over spilt milk, is it? Let's spill some whisky instead! Say when!"

Larpent watched him, frowning. "Thanks! That's enough. I should like an answer to my question if you've no objection. How long is this practical joke going to last?"

Saltash turned and looked upon him with a calculating eye. "I really don't know what's troubling you," he remarked. "You've got everything in your favour. I'd change places with you with all the pleasure in the world if circumstances permitted."

"That isn't the point, is it?" said Larpent.

"No? What is the point?" Saltash turned again to the whisky decanter.

"Well, you've got me into a damn' hole, and I want to know how you're going to get me out again." Larpent's voice was gruff and surly; he stared into his tumbler without drinking.

Saltash chuckled to himself with mischievous amusement. "My dear chap, I can't get you out. That's just it. I want you to stay there."

Larpent muttered deeply and inarticulately, and began to drink.

Saltash turned round, glass in hand, and sat down on the edge of the high, cushioned fender. "I really don't think you are greatly to be pitied," he remarked lightly. "The child will soon be married and off your hands."

"Oh, that's the idea, is it?" said Larpent. "Who's going to marry her? Young Brian?"

"Don't you approve?" said Saltash.

"I don't think it'll come off," said Larpent with decision.

"Why not?" An odd light flickered in the younger man's eyes for an instant. "Are you going to refuse your consent?"

"I?" Larpent shrugged his shoulders. "Are you going to give yours?"

Saltash made an elaborate gesture. "I shall bestow my blessing with both hands."

Larpent looked at him fixedly for a few seconds. "You're a very wonderful man, my lord," he remarked drily at length.

Saltash laughed. "Have you only just discovered that?"

Larpent drained his tumbler gravely and put it down. "All the same, I don't believe it will come off," he said.

Saltash moved impatiently. "You always were an unbeliever. But anyone can see they were made for each other. Of course it will come off."

"You want it to come off?" asked Larpent.

"It is my intention that it shall," said Saltash royally.

"You're playing providence in the girl's interest. Is that it?" Again Larpent's eyes, shrewd and far-seeing, were fixed upon him. They held a glint of humour. "It's a tricky job, my lord. You'll wish you hadn't before you've done."

"Think so?" said Saltash.

"If you haven't begun to already," said Larpent.

Saltash looked down at him with a comical twist of the eyebrows. "You're very analytical to-night. What's the matter?"

"Nothing," said Larpent bluntly. "Except that you're making a mistake."

"Indeed?" For a moment Saltash's look was haughty; then he began to smile again. "I see you're burning to give your advice," he said tolerantly. "Fire away, if it does you any good!"

Larpent's eyes, very steady under their fair, bushy brows, were still unwaveringly upon him. "No, I don't presume to give you advice," he said. "But I'll tell you something which you may or may not know. That young woman you have so kindly bestowed upon me as a daughter worships the ground you tread on, and—that being the case—she isn't very likely to make a dazzling success of it if she marries young Bernard Brian."

He ceased to speak, and simultaneously Saltash jerked himself to his feet with a short French oath that sounded like the snarl of an angry animal. He went across to the windows that were thrown wide to the summer night and stood before one of them with his head flung back in the attitude of one who challenges the universe.

Larpent lay back in his chair with the air of a man who has said his say. He did not even glance towards his companion, and there followed a considerable pause before either of them spoke again.

Abruptly at length Saltash wheeled.

"Larpent!" There was something of a whip-lash quality about his voice; it seemed to cut the silence. "Why the devil do you tell me this? Can't you see that it's the very thing I'm guarding against? Young Bunny is the best remedy she could take for a disease of that kind. And after all,—she's only a child."

"Do you say that for your own benefit or for mine?" said Larpent, without turning his head.

"What do you mean?" Savagely Saltash flung the question, but the man in the chair remained unmoved.

"You know quite well what I mean," he said. "You know that it isn't true."

"What isn't true?" Saltash came swiftly back across the room, moving as if goaded. He took his tumbler from the mantel-piece and drank the contents almost at a gulp. "Go on!" he said, with his back to Larpent. "May as well finish now you've begun. What isn't true?"

Larpent lounged in his chair and watched him, absolutely unmoved.

"When a thing is actually in existence—an accomplished fact—it's rather futile to talk of guarding against it," he said, in his brief, unsympathetic voice. "You've been extraordinarily generous to the imp, and it isn't surprising that she should be extraordinarily grateful. She wouldn't be human if she weren't. But when it comes to handing her on to another fellow—well, she may consent, but it won't be because she wants to, but because it's the only thing left. She knows well enough by this time that what she really wants is out of her reach."

Again Saltash made a fierce movement, but he did not turn or speak.

Larpent took out his pipe and began to fill it. "You've been too good a friend to her," he went on somewhat grimly, "and you're not made of the right stuff for that sort of thing. I'm sorry for the kid because she's a bit of a pagan too, and it's hard to have to embrace respectability whether you want to or not."

"Oh, damn!" Saltash exclaimed, suddenly and violently. "What more could any man have done? What the devil are you driving at?"

He turned upon Larpent almost menacingly, and found the steady eyes, still with that icy glint of humour in them, unflinchingly awaiting his challenge.

"You want to get married," the sailor said imperturbably. "Why in the name of all the stars of destiny don't you marry her? She may not have the blue blood in her veins, but blood isn't everything, and you've got enough for two. And it's my opinion you'd find her considerably easier to please than some—less strict in her views too, which is always an advantage to a man of your varying moods."

Saltash's laugh had a curious jarring sound as of something broken. "Oh, you think that would be a suitable arrangement, do you? And how long do you think I should stick to her? How long would it be before she ran away?"

"I never speculate so far as you are concerned," said Larpent, shaking the tobacco back into his pouch with care.

"You think it wouldn't matter, perhaps?" gibed Saltash. "My royal house is so inured to scandal that no one would expect anything else?"

"I don't think she is the sort to run away," said Larpent quietly. "And I'm pretty sure of one thing. You could hold her if you tried."

"An ideal arrangement!" sneered Saltash. "And I should then settle down to a godly, righteous, and sober life, I suppose? Is that the idea?"

"You said it," observed Larpent, pushing his pipe into his mouth.

Saltash lodged one foot on the high fender, and stared at it. The sneer died out of his face and the old look, half mischievous, half melancholy, took its pace. "I haven't—seriously—contemplated marriage for eight years," he said, his mouth twitching a little as with a smile suppressed. "Not since the day I tried to steal Maud Brian away from Jake—and failed—rather signally. I don't think I've ever done anything quite so low down since."

Larpent lighted his pipe with grave attention. "A good thing for you both that you did fail!" he observed.

"Think so?" Saltash glanced at him. "Why?"

"She isn't the woman for you." Larpent spoke with the absolute conviction of one who knows. "She has too many ideals. Now this sprat you caught at Valrosa—has none."

"Not so sure of that," said Saltash.

"Well, no illusions anyway." There was a hint of compassion in Larpent's voice. "It wasn't because she trusted you that she put herself under your protection. She didn't trust you. She simply chucked herself at you with her eyes open. Like Jonah's whale, you were the only shelter within reach. I'd wager a substantial sum that she's never had any illusions about you. But if you held up your little finger she'd come to you. She's your property, and it isn't in her to do anything else, let her down as often as you will."

Saltash made an excruciating grimace. "My good fellow, spare me! That's just where the shoe pinches. I've broken faith with her already. But—damnation!—what else could I do? I didn't choose the part of virtuous hero. It was thrust upon me. The gods are making sport of me. I am lost in a labyrinth of virtue, and horribly—most horribly—sick of it. I nearly broke through once, but the wreck pulled me up, and when I recovered from that, I was more hopelessly lost than before."

"So you are not enjoying it either!" remarked Larpent, with the glimmer of a smile. "But you don't seem to have let her down very far."

Saltash brought his foot down with a bang. "I swore I'd keep her with me. I meant—oh, God knows what I meant to do. I didn't do it anyway. I broke my oath and I made her go, and she never uttered a word of reproach—not one word! Do you think I'll let her ruin herself by marrying me after that? Like Jonah's whale I've managed to throw her up on to dry land, and if she gets swamped again, it won't be my fault."

He began to laugh again suddenly and cynically—the bitter laugh of a man who hides his soul; and Larpent leaned back in his chair again, as if he recognized that the discussion was over.

"I don't suppose anyone will blame you for it," he said.

"No one will have the chance," said Saltash.



CHAPTER II

THE COMPACT

The polo-ground at Fairharbour was reckoned as one of the greatest attractions the town possessed. Because of it, and the Graydown race-course an ever-increasing stream of visitors poured yearly into the town and its neighbourhood, and very fashionable crowds were wont to gather during the summer season at the various hotels which had sprung up during recent years for their accommodation.

The old Anchor Hotel facing the shore had been bought by a syndicate and rebuilt and was now a very modern erection indeed. It boasted a large lounge, palm-decked and glass-covered, in which a string band played for several hours of the day, and the constant swing of its doors testified to the great popularity to which it had attained since its renovation.

To Bunny, who had known the place under very different circumstances in his boyhood, it was always a source of amusement to drop in and mark progress. The polo-ground was only a few yards away, and he had become an ardent member of the Club to which he almost invariably devoted two afternoons of the week.

He was a promising player, and his keenness made him a favourite. He rode Lord Saltash's ponies, Saltash himself very seldom putting in an appearance. He was wont to declare that he had no time for games, and his frequent absences made it impossible for him to take a very active part in the proceedings of the Club which he had himself inaugurated in an idle hour. He dropped in occasionally to watch a game, and he took interest in Bunny's progress; but he was very rarely moved to play himself. He was too restless, too volatile, to maintain any lasting enthusiasm for any pastime. All that was generally seen of him when staying at Burchester was a lightning glimpse as he tore by in his car, or else galloped furiously over the downs and along the hard sands in the early morning.

He was a good deal in town as a rule during the season, but with the general exodus in July he was invariably the first to go, driven by a fever that gave him no rest. Even his most intimate friends seldom knew where he was to be found or whither his wild fancy would take him next. No one was sure of him at any time. He would accept an engagement and throw it up again without scruple if it did not accord with his mood. Yet wherever he went he could always command a welcome—at least from the feminine portion of the community who declared that Charles Rex could not be judged by ordinary standards; he was a law unto himself.

Even Bunny did not know where he was on that hot afternoon in mid-July when all Fairharbour gathered to watch a match between the regular team and the visitors. It bid fair to be an exciting event, and he was in high spirits at being one of those chosen to play. Maud had promised to bring Toby down to see the game at his special request. He had seen very little of Toby since that night at the Castle, though he was forced to admit to himself that if she avoided him of set purpose she did it in a fashion that baffled detection. She seemed to have settled down as a regular inmate of Jake's household, and with the exception of her early rides with Jake she gave herself up almost exclusively to helping Maud with the children. She had eased his sister's burden in a wonderful fashion, and the children loved her dearly. Her readiness and her sweet temper never seemed to fail. She was but a child herself, but Bunny had an uneasy feeling that she was changing. She had stipulated for six months, but he sometimes wondered if by the end of that time she would not have contrived to put herself out of his reach. It was that suspicion that kept him hotly determined to pursue her untiringly till he captured her. Even at a distance that odd charm of hers lured him strongly, and he knew instinctively that if once she were launched in society his chances of victory would be very greatly reduced. He wished he could have seen more of Captain Larpent and possibly have enlisted his sympathy, but he had left the Castle with Saltash, and even Toby herself professed ignorance of his whereabouts. It was evident that they had never seen much of one another, and Bunny realized that he would look in vain for help in that quarter.

He doggedly maintained his resolve to win her none the less, and his visits to his sister's house were frequent. He spoke no word on the subject either to Maud or Jake. Toby should not feel that he had in any sense taken a mean advantage. But he never looked at her without the quick longing to take her in his arms rising in his heart, and though the longing was never satisfied he believed that she was aware of it. She was always friendly with him and never embarrassed in his presence. Yet he had a strong feeling that by some subtle means she was holding him off. He bided his time with what patience he could muster, but he was determined it should not be for long.

The work on Saltash's estate had done him good. He was keen to prove himself, and the vigorous, out-door life suited him. Jake saw with satisfaction that he was developing a self-reliance and resourcefulness that had not characterized him formerly. He had given up racing according to his promise, and the life he now led was after Jake's own heart, an existence of wholesome activity that was making of him exactly the type of man that he desired him to become. The boy was a gentleman and there was fine stuff in him. Jake gloried in the fact. There had always been in Bunny qualities that appealed to him very strongly, and it was in a large measure due to his influence that those qualities had ripened as they had.

He did not accompany Maud and Toby down to Fairharbour, for business kept him at the Stables. "Bring him back with you!" he said to his wife at parting, and she smiled and promised. Bunny was never difficult to persuade.

But when they reached the polo-ground he was in the midst of a crowd of visitors from the hotel, and it seemed at first as if he would have no time to spare for them. He very speedily detached himself, however, at sight of them and came up with an eager greeting.

"So awfully glad you've come. There are some people here you used to know, Maud, in the old days. Friends of Charlie's too. The Melroses—you remember them, don't you?"

The name came upon Maud with a curious shock. Yes, she remembered the Melroses. They belonged to the long, long ago before her marriage—to that strange epoch in her early girlhood when Charlie Burchester had filled her world. How far away it seemed! They had all been in the same set, they and the Cressadys who had been responsible for the scandal that had so wrung her proud heart. Lady Cressady had been dead for years. She wondered if Charlie had ever regretted her. It had been but a passing fancy, and she suspected that he had forgotten her long since. He had never really taken her seriously; of that she was convinced now. Life had been merely a game with him in those days. It was only recently that it had begun to be anything else.

She felt no keen desire to resume the long-forgotten acquaintance with the Melroses, but Bunny evidently expected it of her, had already told them about her, and she had no choice.

She followed him therefore, Toby very sedate and upright behind her. Toby was looking wonderfully pretty that day. She varied as a landscape varies on a windy day, but that afternoon she was at her best. Her blue eyes looked forth upon the crowd with a hint of audacity, and her piquante little face was full of charm.

Bunny's look dwelt upon her as he drew aside for his sister to pass him at the pavilion. He pinched her elbow with a sudden smile.

"You don't want to go and talk to those people. Come with me and see the ponies!"

She responded with characteristic eagerness to the invitation. "Shall I? But won't Maud mind? Do you think I ought?"