By the end of a week Lady Susan was sufficiently convalescent to hobble about with the aid of a stick, and when Tony called with a huge sheaf of flowers for the invalid, and the news that there was a particularly good programme of music to be given at the Kursaal that evening, she insisted that Ann should go with him to hear it. Ann protested, but Lady Susan swept her objections aside.

"My dear, you've been dancing attendance on a fidgety old cripple long enough. Go along with Tony and squander your francs at boule, and drink cafe melange or ice-cream soda, or whatever indigestible drinks the Kursaal management provides, and listen to this 'perfectly ripping programme.'" She shot a quizzical glance at Tony. "And you can tell that crabbed old uncle of yours to come to the villa and keep me amused in the meantime."

And, since there was never any combating Lady Susan's decisions, matters were arranged accordingly.

* * * * *

It was unusually gay at the Kursaal that evening. The announcement of a special programme had drawn a large audience, and the terrace was crowded with people sitting at small, painted iron tables and partaking of various kinds of refreshment while they listened to the orchestra. Festoons of coloured lights sparkled like jewels in the dusk, and from the twilit shadows of the gardens below came answering gleams of red and orange, where Chinese lanterns spangled the foliage of the trees. Beyond the gardens lay the sleeping lake, and faint little airs wafted coolly upward from its surface, tempering the heat of the evening.

Ann looked round her with interested eyes while Tony gave his order to a waitress. She thoroughly enjoyed an evening at the Kursaal. Until she had joined Lady Susan at Villa Mon Reve, she had never been out of England—for, though Archibald Lovell had been fond of wandering on the Continent himself, no suggestion had ever emanated from him that his daughter might like to wander with him—and the essentially un-English atmosphere of the casino still held for her the attraction of novelty. It was all so gay, so full of light and movement, and of that peculiar charm of the open air which makes an irresistible appeal to English people, condemned as they are by the exigencies of climate to take their pleasures betwixt four walls throughout the greater portion of the year.

"It interests me frightfully, watching people," observed Ann. "Quite a lot of the people here are really enjoying the music—and quite a lot are simply marking time till the tables are open and they can go and play boule."

Tony nodded.

"The sheep and the goats," he replied. "Count me among the latter. But boule's a rotten poor game," discontentedly. "Give me roulette—every time. One has the chance to win something worth while at that."

"And a chance to lose equally as much," retorted Ann.

She flushed a little. This was the first occasion on which Tony had referred to the subject of gambling since the day they had gone up to the Dents de Loup together. She wondered if he had spoken deliberately, intending to remind her of the fact that, since she had refused to marry him, he was perfectly free to gamble if he chose. Yet he had spoken so casually, apparently quite without arriere pensee that it almost appeared as though the memory of that day upon the mountain had been wiped out of his mind. He seemed unconscious of any gene in the situation. During Lady Susan's brief illness he had been in and out of the villa exactly as usual, bringing flowers, running errands, cheering them all up with his infectious good humour—spontaneously willing to do anything and everything that might help to tide over a difficult time.

Now and again there flashed into Ann's mind the recollection of those few moments on the moonlit hill-side, when Tony's gravely steadfast face and proffered vow had made her think of him as some young knight of old, and she would ask herself whether she had done right or wrong in refusing him. But, for the most part, the episode seemed to her to be invested with a curious sense of unreality, an impression which was fostered by the apparently unforced naturalness of Tony's demeanour. And now she felt rather as though he were asserting his independence, his freedom to gamble.

"Lose?" He picked up her words. "You've got to be prepared to lose—at everything. The whole of life's a bit of a gamble, don't you think?"

"No," she answered steadily. "I don't. Life's what you make it."

The soft, slate-coloured eyes regarded her oddly.

"Yours will be, I dare say. Mine will be regulated by Uncle Philip, presumably." His mouth twitched in a brief sneer. "It rather strikes me we make each other's lives." Then, as though trying to turn the conversation into a more impersonal channel: "Rum crowd here to-night, isn't it? See that woman sitting on your left? She looks as though she hadn't two sous to rub together, yet she's been losing at least five hundred francs each night this week. She covers the table with five-franc notes and loses consistently."

So Tony himself must have been playing at the tables every night! Ann made no comment, but glanced in the direction of the woman indicated. She was rather a striking-looking woman, no longer young, with a clever, mobile mouth, and a pair of dark, tragic-looking eyes that appeared all the darker by contrast with her powder-white hair. She was of foreign nationality—Russian, probably, Ann reflected, with those high cheek-bones of hers and that subtle grace of movement. But she was atrociously dressed. Crammed down on to her beautiful white hair was a mannish-looking soft felt hat that had seen its best days long ago, and the coat and skirt she was wearing, though unmistakably of good cut, were old and shabby. In her hand she held an open note-case, eagerly counting over the Swiss notes it contained, while every now and again she lifted her sombre, tragic eyes and cast a hungry glance towards the room where boule was played, the doors of which were not yet open.

"She might be an exiled Russian princess," commented Ann, observing a certain regal turn of the head which wore the battered mannish hat.

Tony nodded.

"That's just what she is. She used to play a lot at Monte before the war. Now she can't afford to go there. So she lives here and plays every night—on the proceeds of any odd jewellery she can still sell."

Ann regarded her commiseratingly. The woman seemed to her a pathetically tragic figure—a sidelight on the many tragedies hidden among that cosmopolitan crowd on the terrace. Then her straying glance shifted to a man seated alone at the next table to the Russian's, apparently absorbed in a newspaper. Tony followed the direction of her eyes.

"That chap plays bridge at the club sometimes," he vouchsafed. "I don't know who he is—never spoken to him. Foreigner, too, I should imagine. He's so swarthy."

Ann bestowed a second glance on the man in question. He was wearing evening kit, and at first sight the brown-skinned face above the white of his collar, taken in conjunction with dark hair and very strongly-marked brows, seemed to premise the correctness of Tony's surmise. Suddenly the man lifted his bent head, and over the top of the newspaper Arm found herself looking into a pair of unmistakably grey eyes—grey as steel. They were very direct eyes, with a certain brooding discontent in their depths which looked as though it might flame out into sudden scorn with very little provocation.

She dropped her glance in some confusion. She felt rather as though she had been caught looking over her neighbour's garden wall. There had been an ironical glint in the regard which the grey eyes had levelled at her that suggested their owner might have overheard Tony's frank comment. Under cover of a fortissimo finale on the part of the orchestra she leant forward and spoke in a low voice:

"He's as English as you are, Tony. No one but an Englishman ever had grey eyes like that."

But Tony's interest had evaporated. The band's final burst of enthusiasm heralded the finish of the first part of the programme and the consequent opening of the tables for boule. With a hurried "Come along, quick," he jumped up and, with Ann beside him, was first in the van of the throng which was hastening into the rooms to play. In a few moments the gaily-lit terrace was practically deserted, and an eager-faced crowd pressed up against the green-clothed tables, each individual eager to secure a good place.

For a little while Ann contented herself with watching.

"Faites vos jeux, messieurs. Messieurs, faites vos jeux."

The ball spun round, and the croupier's monotone sounded warningly above the whispering of notes and the clink of coin.

"Le jeu est fait." It reminded Ann of the vicar intoning at the little church she had attended in the old Lovell Court days. Only there were no responses! Everybody was engrossed in watching the ball as it dodged in and out amongst the numbers, hesitating maddeningly, then starting gaily off on a fresh tack as though guided by some invisible spirit of malice.

"Rien ne va plus!"

Like the crack of doom came the last gabbled utterance, and the croupier's rake descended sharply on a claw-like hand which was attempting to insinuate a coin on to the cloth "after hours," so to speak.

"Cinq!" An announcement which, five being the equivalent of the zero in roulette, was followed by the hungry rake's sweeping everything into the coffers of the bank except the five-franc note which Tony had staked on the number cinq.

He gathered up his winnings, and, turning excitedly to Ann, demanded why she wasn't playing.

"Follow me," he told her. "I'm going to win to-night. I feel it in my bones."

His eyes were brilliant under their absurd long lashes, and the smile he gave her was the confident smile of a conqueror. Ann caught the infection and began to play, staking where he staked, as he had suggested. Now and then she ventured a little flutter of her own and tried some other number, but usually her modest franc lay side by side with Tony's lordly five-franc note.

Evidently Tony's bones had the right prophetic instinct, for after every coup the croupier pushed across to him a small pile of notes and silver. Ann's own eyes were sparkling now. It was not that she really cared much about her actual winnings. She was staking too lightly for that to matter. But it entertained her enormously to win—to beat the bank as embodied in the person of the croupier, who reminded her of nothing so much as of an extremely active spider waiting in a corner of his web to pounce on an adventurous fly. Each time the ball dropped into the number she had backed, a little thrill of sheer, gleeful enjoyment ran through her.

Now and again, in spite of her absorption in her own and Tony's play, she was conscious of a muscular brown hand on her right that reached out to place a fresh stake on the table—never to gather up any winnings. Its owner must be losing heavily. He was betting, not only on single numbers, but putting the maximum on certain combinations and groups of numbers. And every time the long-handled rake whisked his stakes away from him.

Ann glanced sideways to see who was the unlucky player, and once more she met the same ironical grey eyes which she had last encountered over the top of a newspaper. The man who was losing so persistently was her Englishman.

He did not seek to hold her gaze, but bent his own immediately upon the table again. She stole another glance at him. He was very brown, but she could see now that he was naturally fair-skinned, although tanned by the sun. A small scar, high up on the left cheek-bone, showed like a white line against the tan. Probably he had lived abroad in a hot climate, she reflected; that deep bronze was never the achievement of an elusive northern sun. It emphasised the penetrating quality of his eyes, giving them a curious brilliance. Ann had been conscious of a little shock each time she had encountered them. She was inclined to set his actual age at thirty-six or seven, though his face might have been that of a man of forty. But there was a suggestion of something still boyish about it, notwithstanding the rather stern-set features and bitter-looking mouth. She felt as though the bitterness revealed in his expression did not rightly belong to the man's nature. It was in essence alien—something that life had added to him.

"Faites vos jeux, messieurs; messieurs, faites vos jeux."

The croupier's droning voice recalled her sharply from her thoughts.

"Which is it to be this time, Tony?" she asked, smiling.

"Seven and impair," he replied tersely. And in due course the seven turned up.

Their run of luck was continuing without a break, and plenty of amused and interested glances were cast at the young couple of successful players. They were taking it all so easily, with a careless, light-hearted enjoyment that was rather refreshing to turn to after a glimpse of some of the furtive, vulture-like faces gathered round the tables. Meanwhile, the grey-eyed Englishman continued to lose with the same persistency as his young compatriots were winning. Apparently he was playing on a system, for, in spite of his want of success, he continued steadily backing certain definite combinations. He showed neither impatience or annoyance when he lost. His face remained perfectly impassive, and Ann had a feeling that he would play precisely as steadily, remain as grimly unmoved, if the stakes were a hundred times as high as those permitted at the Kursaal. She could imagine him staking his whole fortune, losing it, and then walking out of the rooms as coolly composed as he had entered them.

Once more the ball slithered into the number she had backed, and she opened a small silken bag, that already bulged with her evening's gains, and added the winnings of the last coup. At the same moment, some one pressing from behind jolted her arm, and the bag fell with a little thud, its contents spilling out on the floor. Tony, engrossed in the play, failed to notice the mishap and went on staking, but the Englishman, apparently quite unconcerned as to the chances he might be missing, stooped at once and collected the bag and its scattered contents.

"I think I've rescued everything," he said, as he handed it to her. "But you'd better count it over and make certain."

"Oh, no, I won't count it. It's sure to be all right. Thank you so much." Ann spoke rather breathlessly. For some reason or other she felt unaccountably nervous.

The man smiled.

"You've become such a Croesus to-night that I suppose an odd franc or two doesn't matter?" he suggested.

"I have been lucky, haven't I?" she acknowledged frankly. "It's been such fun." Then, with friendly sympathy: "I'm afraid you've lost, though?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm used to losing," he replied indifferently.

Somehow, Ann felt as though he were not thinking only of his losses at the tables. That note of bitterness in his voice sprang from some deeper undercurrent.

"I'm so sorry," she said simply.

"I never expect to win," he returned curtly. "If you expect nothing, you're never disappointed. Pray don't waste your sympathy."

The rudeness of the speech took her aback. Yet, sensing in its very churlishness the sting of some old hurt, she answered him quietly, though with heightened colour:

"If you expect nothing, you'll get nothing. That's one of the rules of the road."

He checked himself in the act of turning away, and regarded her with a mixture of contempt and amusement, much as one might smile at the utterances of a child.

"Don't you think we get mostly what we're looking for?" she went on courageously. "If you expect good things, they'll come to you, and if you're expecting bad things, they'll come, too."

He gave a short laugh.

"The doctrine of faith! I'm afraid I've outgrown it—many years ago."

"Faites vos jeux, messieurs," intoned the croupier.

The Englishman tossed a coin on to number nine. Ann followed the circlings of the ball with a curious tense anxiety. She wished desperately that the nine would turn up.

"Numero un!"

With a feeling akin to revolt she watched those who had staked on number one grab up their winnings, while the croupier raked in the Englishman's solitary bid for fortune.

"You see?" The bitter grey eyes mocked her. "Quite symbolical, wasn't it?"

With a slight bow he moved away from the table and passed quickly out of the room.

Ann felt disinclined to play any further. She watched Tony win, then lose once, then win again several times in succession. He was flushed and there was a look of triumph on his face.

"Haven't you finished yet, Tony?" she asked at last "I'm ready to go home when you are."

"Go home? When I'm winning?" he expostulated. "Rather not!" Then, catching sight of her face, "Hello! You look tired. Are you, Ann?"

She nodded.

"Yes, I think I am a little."

Tony held a five-franc note in his hand, ready for staking. Without the least sign of disappointment he stuffed it back into his pocket.

"Then we'll go home," he said. And somewhat to the amazement of the people nearest him, who had been watching his phenomenal run of luck, he made a way for Ann through the crowd and followed her out of the room.

"That was nice of you, Tony," she said gratefully, as they started to walk home through the deserted streets.

He threw her a quick, enigmatic smile.

"I've an obliging disposition. Haven't you found that out yet?"

Ann laughed.

"It's becoming quite noticeable," she retorted. "Tony, you nearly broke the bank to-night, I should think."

"Broke the bank! At five francs a time!" He kicked a pebble viciously into the roadway. "It was confounded bad luck to get a run like that with such a rotten limit. With an equal run at Monte I'd have made a fortune. Oh, damn!"

They walked on in silence for a while. There was no moon. The lake lay dark and mysterious, pricked here and there with the swaying orange light of a fishing-boat. High up, like a ring of planets brooding above the town, the great arc of the Caux Palace lights blazed through the starlit dusk.

Tony reverted to the evening's play.

"You didn't do badly, either," he said, challengingly. "You weren't bored to-night, were you?"

An odd little smile crossed her face.

"No, I wasn't bored," she answered quietly.



CHAPTER VII

A QUESTION OF ILLUSIONS

An air of suppressed excitement prevailed over Montricheux. It was the day when the pretty lakeside town celebrated the Fete des Narcisses, and from the smallest street urchin, grabbing a bunch of narcissi in his grubby little hand and trying to induce the good-natured foreigner to purchase his wares, to the usually stolid hoteliers, vying with each other as to which of their caravanserais should blaze out into the most arresting scheme of decoration on the great occasion, the whole population was aquiver with an almost child-like sense of anticipation and delight. There was to be a procession of decorated cars and carriages, a battle of flowers, and attractions innumerable during the course of the day, followed in the evening by a Venetian fete on the waters of the bay.

Tony looked in at Villa Mon Reve shortly after breakfast.

"Taking any part in the proceedings?" he inquired conversationally.

Ann shook her head.

"We've had the car decorated in honour of the occasion," she replied. "But we're not competing for any prize. I expect we shall just drive about the town."

"Same here. Tour round, chucking flowers at unsuspecting people. It's a bore that you and I can't play about together," moodily. "But we've got a female relative of Uncle Philip's on our hands—a wealthy old cousin, name of 'Great Expectations,'" with a cheerful grin. "So I've got to trot her round and do the devoted nephew stunt all day."

"I hope you'll do it nicely"—smiling.

"I shall hear of it from Uncle Philip if I don't!"—grimly. "But you needn't worry. I got all my best manners down from the top shelf this morning and gave 'em a brush up."

"Good boy." Ann nodded approval.

"And by way of reward," insinuated Tony, "you'll come to the dance at the Gloria this evening, won't you? I could come over and fetch you about ten o'clock, after this precious Venetian fete is over. I'd have liked to go on the lake, but Uncle Philip has ordained that we are to watch the proceedings from our balcony at the Gloria. After that, I should think 'cousin' will be sufficiently exhausted to contemplate the idea of retiring to bed like a Christian woman. She's seventy-nine."

"People fox-trot at seventy-nine nowadays," suggested Ann mischievously. "Perhaps your duties won't end at ten." Then, seeing his face fall: "But I'll come to the dance, if Lady Susan doesn't happen to want me this evening."

At that moment Lady Susan herself came into the room. She still limped a little, leaning on an ebony stick with a gold knob.

"Who's taking my name in vain?" she asked, as she shook hands with Tony. "I'm sure to want you," addressing Ann, "but I suppose I shall have to go without you if Tony wants you too."

Ann explained about the dance, adding: "But of course I shan't think of it if you'd rather I stayed at home."

"Of course you will think of it," contradicted Lady Susan with vigour. "I'd go myself if it wasn't for this wretched ankle of mine, and then"—bubbling over—"Philip and I could tread a stately measure together. I can just see him doing it!" she added wickedly.

"That's fixed, then," said Tony. "So long. I'll call for you about ten o'clock, Ann."

After lunch Lady Susan and Ann drove off in the two-seater, Ann at the wheel and a great basket of flowers for ammunition purposes on the floor of the car. The streets were thronged with people, and from almost every window depended flags and coloured streamers, flapping gaily in the breeze. Cars hastened hither and thither; some, elaborately decorated, were evidently intended to compete for the prizes offered, whilst others, like that of Lady Susan, were only sufficiently embellished to permit of their taking part in the Battle of Flowers, in accordance with the official regulations issued for the occasion.

The judging of the cars took place in the wide Place du Marche, and immediately afterwards the firing-off of a small self-important cannon signalised the commencement of the battle. Carriages and cars passed and repassed, flowers were tossed from one to the other, whilst showers of confetti and coloured paper serpentins flew through the air.

Lady Susan apparently enjoyed the fun as much as any one, and was perfectly charmed when, as the two-seater glided past Sir Philip's Rolls-Royce, he flung an exquisite spray of crimson roses into her lap, with a sprig of rosemary nestling amongst them.

"Romantic old dear!" she commented, laughing, as she retaliated with a tiny nosegay which Sir Philip caught neatly as it went sailing over his head. But her eyes were very soft as she turned to Ann. "The beauty of not being married is that you never lose your illusions. Always remember that, Ann, when you feel like commiserating the old maids of your acquaintance."

"And are you bound to lose them if you marry?" queried Ann, steering her way deftly through the traffic and bringing the two-seater to a standstill as the stream of cars temporarily checked.

"No. But you run an excellent chance of it. Do you suppose if I'd married Sir Philip thirty years ago he'd be pelting me with roses now?"—enjoyably. "Of course not. It'd be the tradesmen's books, most likely!"

"You wicked cynic!"

Lady Susan laid her hand impulsively on the girl's arm.

"Not really, Ann," she said hastily. "I know that if only a man remembers the roses, marriage may mean heaven on earth. But they so often forget"—a little wistfully. "And a woman does so hate to be taken for granted—regarded as a kind of standing dish!"

Came a regular barrage of flowers from a car to their right, and Ann, recognising a party of friends, returned them measure for measure. Meanwhile, unnoticed by her, the third-prize car had drawn alongside, intervening between herself and the car-load of friends. She had already raised her arm to speed a final rosebud on its way, and then, with a sudden shock of surprise, she recognised in one of the occupants of the prize car the Englishman with the grey eyes. He was sitting beside an extremely pretty woman and looking somewhat haughty and ill-tempered, as though the whole business of the fete bored him excessively.

She tried to check her action, but it was too late. The rosebud flew from her fingers, and the Englishman's head being directly in her line of fire, the bud, sped with hearty goodwill, hit him straight on the nose. Ann smiled—she couldn't help it. But there came no response, his expression remaining unaltered. He regarded her unsmilingly, without a hint of recognition in his eyes.

A hot flush stained her cheeks.

"Boor!" was her mental comment, and she let in the clutch viciously as the car in front of her moved forward.

Lady Susan laughed outright.

"I wonder who that handsome, sulky-looking individual is?" she said gaily. "He fairly froze you, Ann. I imagine he thinks you did it on purpose."

Ann's face burned more hotly. That was precisely the conclusion she had arrived at herself, and the idea filled her with helpless rage.

"He struck me as quite an unusual combination of good looks and bad temper," pursued Lady Susan. "Evidently he doesn't appreciate being pelted with roses."

A sudden gurgle of laughter broke from Ann.

"It was rather a hard little bud," she said vindictively. "I hope it hurt him."

Lady Susan threw a swift glance at her.

"Do you know him? Have you met him before?" she asked.

"He was down at the Kursaal the other night—the night Tony and I had such good luck. I dropped my bag and he picked it up for me. That's all."

Ann spoke rather shortly, and for some time afterwards appeared to be completely absorbed in manoeuvring the two-seater through the streets. They did not encounter the Englishman's car again, and eventually, after making a final circuit of the town, they returned to Mon Reve.

In the evening Lady Susan complained of fatigue.

"I've not quite got over that fall of mine yet," she acknowledged ruefully, when Ann suggested that perhaps she had been out driving too long in the hot sun. "Elderly ladies should refrain from tumbling about; it shakes them up too much. I should immensely like to go to bed, if you don't mind watching the Venetian fete in solitary splendour. Do you?"

She emitted a sigh of satisfaction when Ann assured her that she did not.

"Then I shall just disappear to bed with a novel. It will entertain me far more than gazing at a lot of illuminated boats paddling about the lake."

"I think I shall take our boat out, then," said Ann. "I'd rather like to see it all at close quarters. It's all new to me, you know."

Lady Susan nodded. At different times they had spent a good many enjoyable hours together, pulling about on the lake, and she had complete confidence in Ann's ability to manage a rowing-boat.

"Very well. Only don't forget Tony is coming to take you to the dance at ten and tire yourself out."

Ann laughed and shook her head, and when Lady Susan had departed to bed she threw a knitted coat over her evening frock and made her way out into the garden. It was a long, rambling garden, sheltered from the road by a high wall and, at its farthest end, skirting the lake itself. Here a small wooden landing-stage had been erected, and moored against it lay a light rowing-boat—the Reve. With practised hands Ann untied the painter, affixed a light to the bows of the boat, dropped the sculls into the rowlocks, and rowed quietly out across the placid water.

One by one illuminated boats came creeping round the arm of the bay, each adding a fresh cluster of twinkling lights to the bobbing multitude already gathered there. Like a cloud of fireflies they seemed to dart and circle and hover above the dusky surface of the lake. Motor-launches flashed here and there, in and out amongst the slower craft, while from one of the lake steamers, decks and rigging outlined in quivering points of light, came the inspiriting strains of a band. Snatches of song drifted across the water, and now and again the melancholy long-drawn hoot of a syren pierced the air.

Gradually Ann drew abreast of the assembled craft, and leisurely pulled her way in and out amongst them. The decorated boats delighted her, some agleam with Chinese lanterns—giant glow-worms floating on the water, others with phantom sails of frail asparagus fern lit by swaying lights like dancing will-o'-the-wisps—dream-boats gliding slowly over a dreaming lake.

Presently she rested on her oars, watching the scene with the eager, vivid interest which was characteristic of her. So absorbed was she that she failed to notice that her own small skiff was getting rather dangerously hemmed in. To her right lay a biggish sailing vessel, blocking the view on that side, behind her a small fry of miscellaneous craft, packed together like a flotilla of Thames boats on a summer's day awaiting the opening of the lock gates. Half unconsciously she heard the approaching chug-chug of an engine mingling with the sound of voices singing lustily—the hilarious chorus of a crew of roysterers who had been celebrating not wisely but too well.

... It all happened with appalling suddenness. One moment she was watching the fairy fleet that glittered on the lake, the next a hubbub of hoarse, warning shouts filled the air, the throb of an engine pulsed violently in her ears, and a motor-boat, overloaded by half-tipsy revellers and travelling too fast for safety, drove past the bows of the sailing vessel and veered drunkenly towards her. Instinctively she clutched at her oars. But they were useless, pinned to the sides of her boat by the press of others round it. Then, from almost immediately above her, it seemed, a terse voice—curiously familiar—rapped out a command.

"Stand up!"

Hardly knowing what she did, she obeyed, yielding blindly to the peremptory order. She felt her frail barque rock beneath her feet, then strong arms grasped her—strong as tempered steel—and lifted her clean up out of the lurching boat and over its side into another.

Almost before she had time to realise that she was safe, the motor-boat crashed, head on, into the empty Reve, staving in her side so that in an instant she had filled with water, her gunwale level with the lake. Then, as though some ghoulish hand had clutched at her from the depths below, she sank suddenly out of sight.

Staring with horrified eyes at the swift and utter destruction of the Reve, Ann shuddered uncontrollably. But for the unknown deliverer who had snatched her bodily from the doomed boat she herself would be struggling in that almost fathomless depth of water or, stunned by the savage drive of the motor-boat's prow, sinking helplessly down to the bottom like a stone.

"Don't be afraid. You're all right." Again that strangely familiar note in the reassuring voice.

Ann twisted round within the circle of the arms which held her and peered up at the face of their owner. A flickering gleam of light revealed a small white scar high up on the left cheek-bone.

"You!" she exclaimed under her breath. "Is it you?"

"Yes." She could detect a note of amusement in the voice that came to her through the dusk. "Your creed has proved false, you see. I expected nothing—and here I am with an altogether charming adventure."

"I shouldn't describe it quite like that," she answered ruefully.

"No? But then you've lost a boat, whereas I've gained a passenger. Our points of view are different."

The arms which held her had not relaxed their hold, and she stirred restlessly, suddenly acutely conscious of their embrace. Instantly she felt herself released.

"Will you be all right?" came in a cool voice.

"Oh, yes—yes." Ann stammered a little. "This is a very steady boat, isn't it?"—wonderingly.

"It's a motor-boat, that's why."

Now that the uproar occasioned by the accident had died away, she could hear the soft purring of an engine forward.

"Still, you'd better sit down," resumed the Englishman. "The Bacchanalian gentlemen in the boat which ran you down are still blundering about, and may quite probably cannon into us. And you don't want to take a second chance of being shot out into the lake."

"Indeed I don't." She sat down hastily. "I—I don't really know how to thank you," she began haltingly, after a moment. Somehow she felt curiously shy and tongue-tied with this man.

"Then don't try," he replied ungraciously.

This was hardly encouraging, but Ann returned to the charge with determination.

"I must," she said. "If it hadn't been for you I should certainly have been drowned."

"Rather improbable," he answered—as indifferently as though it really mattered very little whether she were or not. "With so many people close at hand, some one would have been sure to fish you out. You'd have got a wetting—and so would your unfortunate rescuer. That's all. Still, I'm just as glad I saw what was going to happen. I prefer to keep a dry skin myself."

"Oh! Then you would have jumped in after me?" asked Ann, with interest.

He sat down in the stern of the boat, his arm on the tiller, and regarded her contemplatively.

"I suppose so. A man has no choice when a woman chooses to go monkeying about in a boat and gets herself into difficulties."

"'Monkeying about in a boat!'" repeated Ann indignantly. "I suppose you'll say next that I rammed my own boat and sank it!"

"You certainly put yourself in the way of danger," he retorted. "Who in the name of Heaven allowed you to go out on the lake alone on a fete night like this? Isn't there any one to look after you?"

"I look after myself," she replied shortly. "I'm not a child."

He laughed.

"Not much more, surely. How old are you? Seventeen? Eighteen?"

"Add four," said Ann, "and you'll be nearer it."

"So much?" He fell silent. There had been genuine surprise in his voice. Perhaps he was recalling her as he had seen her at the Kursaal—boyishly slender, her eager, pointed face alight with gay enthusiasm and amusement.

One, two, three—nine strokes. The sound of a clock striking came wafted faintly across from the shore. Ann started up.

"I must get back!" she exclaimed. "I'd forgotten all about the time."

A brief smile crossed the man's dark face.

"So had I," he said. And there was something in the quality of his voice which sent the colour flying up into her face.

"Why must you go back in such a hurry?" he resumed composedly. "One can watch the fete very well here."

"I'm going to a dance—at the Gloria," said Ann. "Some one—they are coming to fetch me, and if I'm not there—"

"'They' will be disappointed," he finished for her, a veiled irony in his voice. "What time do your friends expect you?"

"At ten."

"And it is now only nine. If you care to watch the fete a little longer, I can land you wherever you wish and you would still be in good time. I will guarantee your safety," he added with a smile.

Ann hesitated. On the one hand she was thoroughly enjoying the water-fete as viewed from the security of the Englishman's motor-boat, and the unconventionality of the circumstances added a spice of adventure to the situation. On the other, like every properly brought up young woman, she was quite aware of what would be Mrs. Grundy's pronouncement on such a matter.

"You'll stay?" said the Englishman.

It savoured more of a command than a question. Metaphorically Ann threw Mrs. Grundy overboard into the lake.

"Yes, I'll stay," she answered.

He accepted her decision without any outward sign of satisfaction, and she experienced a slight chill of disappointment. Perhaps, after all, he had only asked her to remain a little longer, not because he really desired the pleasure of her company, but merely in order that he might not be inconvenienced by the necessity of taking her back to Montricheux before he himself was ready to go. She had all the sensitiveness of youth and, once this idea had presented itself to her, she felt self-conscious and ill at ease, only anxious for the moment to arrive when she need no longer trespass on his hospitality.

And then, just as though some secret wireless had acquainted him of her discomfort, he held out his hand with a sudden smile that softened the harsh lines of his face extraordinarily.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "When you go to bed to-night you'll be able to feel you've done your 'kind deed' for to-day."

Half reluctantly, yet unable to do otherwise, Ann laid her hand in the one he held out to her. His strong fingers closed round it possessively and she was aware of a queer, breathless feeling of captivity. She drew her hand sharply away.

"Is it a 'kind deed'?" she asked lightly, for the sake of saying something—anything—which should break the tension of the silence which had followed.

"Is it not? To bestow a charming half-hour of your companionship on the loneliest person in Montricheux? Oh, I think so."

"You didn't look at all lonely this afternoon," flashed back Ann, remembering the pretty woman with whom she had seen him driving.

"At the Battle of Flowers, you mean? No." He turned the conversation adroitly. "But I only won third prize, so I'm still in need of sympathy. Taking the third prize is rather my metier in life."

"Perhaps it's all you deserve," she suggested unkindly. "Anyway, you've nothing to grumble at. We didn't win anything. We weren't elaborately enough decorated to compete."

"Yet you looked as if you were enjoying it all," he hazarded. "Did you?"

"Yes, of course I did. Didn't you?"

"Not particularly—till some one threw me a rose."

Ann decided to ignore the latter part of this speech.

"You're such a confirmed cynic that I wonder you condescended to take part in anything go frivolous as the fete," she observed.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"When in Rome—Besides, it reminded me of my young days."

"You talk as if you were a close relation of Methuselah. You're not so very old."

"Am I not?" He paused a moment. "Old enough, at any rate, to have lost all my illusions."

There was an undercurrent so bitter in the curtly uttered speech that Ann's warm young sympathies responded involuntarily.

"I wish I could bring them back for you," she said impulsively.

Through the flickering luminance of the lights rimming the boat's gunwale he looked at her with an odd intensity.

"That's just what I'm afraid of," he said. "That you might bring them back. Fortunately, I'm leaving Montricheux to-morrow."

Ann was silent. She was vibrantly conscious of the man's strange, forceful personality. His brusque, hard speeches fell on her like so many blows, and yet behind them she felt as though there were something that appealed—something hurt and seeking to hide its hurt behind an armour of savage irony.

His voice, coolly indifferent once more, broke across her thoughts.

"Would you like to go back now?"

He spoke as though he were suddenly anxious to be rid of her as quickly as possible, and she assented hastily. His abrupt changes of mood disconcerted her. There seemed no accounting for what he might say next. He tossed a curt order to a man whom she could discern crouching forward near the engine.

"Bien, m'sieu," came the answer, and presently the motor-boat was dexterously edging her way through the throng till she emerged into a clear space and purred briskly towards the shore.

Once more the Englishman's hand closed firmly round Ann's as he helped her out on to the little landing-stage.

"Good-bye," she said, a trifle nervously. "And thank you so much for coming to my rescue."

Still retaining her hand in his, he stared down at her with those queerly compelling eyes of his. She felt her breath coming and going unevenly. For a moment he hesitated, as though deliberating some point within himself. Then:

"Good-bye," he said. And his voice was utterly expressionless. It held not even cordiality.



CHAPTER VIII

A LETTER FROM ENGLAND

The postman, entering through the garden gate which opened on to the street, found Ann busily engaged in cutting flowers. He greeted her with a smile, pleased to be saved the remainder of the distance to the house.

"Bonjour, mademoiselle. Only one letter for the villa this morning." He handed her the solitary missive which the mail had brought and departed, whistling cheerfully, on his way down the street.

Ann fingered the bulky envelope with satisfaction. It was addressed in Robin's handwriting, and she carried it off to a sunny corner of the garden to enjoy its contents at leisure.

"Dear Little Ann"—ran the letter. "Here, at last is the good news we have both been waiting for! I have been offered exactly the kind of billet I wanted—that of estate-agent to a big land-owner. The salary is a really generous one, and there's a jolly little cottage goes with it, so that you'll be able to chuck free-lancing and come and keep house for me as we've always planned. Needless to say, I've accepted the job!

"And now to give you all details. My future employer is one, Eliot Coventry. We've had several interviews and I liked him very much, although he struck me as rather a queer sort of chap. I should put him down as dead straight and thoroughly dissatisfied with life! Heronsmere, the Coventry place, is a fine old house—one of those old Elizabethan houses you're so cracked on. It reminds me a bit of Lovell Court. There'll be a lot to see to on the estate, as the bailiff in charge has just let things rip, and Coventry himself has been out of England for some years. In fact, he has never lived at Heronsmere. He's a distant cousin of the late owner and only inherited owing to a succession of deaths. He was abroad at the time and never even troubled to come home and have a look at his inheritance.

"One thing I know will please you, and that is that we shall be near the sea. Silverquay is the name of the village, which is really a part of the Heronsmere property. It's comparatively small, not much more than a little fishing village, but the town of Ferribridge is only about ten miles distant, so you'll be able to obtain the necessities of civilised existence, I expect.

"Coventry wants me to take up the work straight away, so I should like to move into Oldstone Cottage—our future place of abode—as soon as possible. How soon do you think Lady Susan would spare you? By the way, you won't need to exercise your mind over the servant question. Knowing you were fixed out in Switzerland, I wrote off at once to Maria Coombe to ask her if she knew of any one suitable, and she promptly suggested herself! So she goes to Oldstone Cottage to-morrow to get things in order for us.

"I think I've told you everything. I've tried to imagine all the questions you would want to ask—and to supply the answers!

"Ever your affectionate brother, "ROBIN."

Ann laid the letter down on her knee and sat looking out across the lake with eyes which held a curious mixture of pleasure and regret. The idea of sharing life once more with Robin filled her with undiluted joy, but she was conscious that the thought of leaving Lady Susan and dear, gunny Switzerland created an actual little ache in her heart. She could quite imagine feeling rather homesick for Lady Susan's kindly presence, and for the Swiss mountains and the blue lake which lay smiling and dimpling at her now in the brilliant sunlight.

Her glance lingered on the lake. She had not been on the water since the Venetian fete, nearly three weeks ago, owing primarily to the destruction of the Reve, and secondly to Lady Susan's incurable aversion to a hired boat. "They roll, my dear," she asserted, when Ann vainly tried to tempt her into giving the hireling a chance. "And the cushions have villainous lumps in sundry places. No, I'll stay on shore till we have a new boat of our own."

So they had stayed on shore, but in spite of herself, Ann's thoughts often travelled back to the occasion of that last journey she had made on the lake—with the purr of the motor-boat's engine in her ears and the odd, unnerving consciousness of the Englishman's close proximity. She would have liked to forget him, but there was something about the man which made this impossible. Ann admitted it to herself with an annoyed sense of the unreasonableness of it. He was nothing to her—not even an acquaintance, according to the canons of social convention—and in all human probability they would never meet again.

Yet, try as she might, she had been unable to dismiss him altogether from her thoughts, and since his departure she had several times caught herself wondering, with a fugitive emotion of odd trepidation, whether he would ever return. Once she had even thought she descried him coming towards her along the Grand' Rue, and when the figure which she had supposed was his resolved itself, upon closer inspection, into that of a total stranger, bearing only the most superficial resemblance to the man for whom she had mistaken him, she experienced a totally disproportionate sense of disappointment.

The news contained in Robin's letter promised, at any rate, to end all likelihood of any further meeting. Even if, later on, the unknown Englishman should return to Montricheux, it would only be to find her gone. She derived a certain feeling of relief from this thought. There was something disquieting about the man. He made you like and dislike him almost in the same breath. On the whole, Ann felt she would be glad to be in England, freed from the rather disturbing uncertainty as to whether they might or might not meet again. People so often came back to Montricheux.

She folded up Robin's letter, and, slinging her basket of flowers over her arm, returned to the house, somewhat troubled in mind as to how she should break the news of her impending departure to Lady Susan. The difficulty solved itself, however, more easily than she had anticipated.

"At Silverquay!" exclaimed Lady Susan, when Ann had explained matters. "Now, how charming! I do think Fate is a good-natured old thing sometimes. I shall lose you and yet still keep you, Ann. You'll be living quite near me."

Ann looked up in surprise.

"But you don't live at Silverquay!" she said.

"Almost next door, though. My home, White Windows, is in the neighbouring parish—Heronsfoot—about five miles away, three if you cut across the fields."

"Then of course you know this Mr. Coventry?"

"No, I've never met him. I knew Rackham Coventry, from whom your man inherited, and I've heard him speak of his cousin Eliot. They were on very bad terms with each other, so that Eliot never came near the place in poor old Rack's time, and, as your brother tells you, he was abroad when the property fell in to him. Heronsmere is a lovely old house, by the way."

"I wonder Mr. Coventry never came back until now," said Ann. "He must take very little interest in the place."

"He's lived abroad for years, I believe. I remember Rack's telling me he had been crossed in love, and he cut himself adrift from England afterwards. I think the girl threw him over because in those days he wasn't rich enough. She must feel rather a fool now, if she knows how things have fallen out. The Heronsmere rent-roll is enormous."

"It rather serves her right, doesn't it?" commented Ann, with a feeling that for once poetic justice had been meted out.

Lady Susan smiled.

"Yes. Though I always feel a bit sorry for people who get their deserts. You never realise how heavy the bill is going to be when you're running it up." She fell silent a moment, then went on: "The pity of it is that I suppose Eliot Coventry will never marry now, and so Heronsmere will ultimately go to a very distant branch of the family. He tried to get himself killed out of the way during the war, I heard. I knew a man in the same regiment, and he told me Eliot didn't seem to know what the word fear meant—'Mad Coventry,' they called him. He took the most amazing risks, and came through without a scratch."

"While poor Robin got badly wounded and gassed into the bargain," said Ann. "That's why I'm so glad he's got this post. The doctors told him that an out-door job was his one chance of getting really strong again."

"Yes, I'm very glad—for you," answered Lady Susan ruefully. "But I shall miss you badly, child. However, if Robin wants you he must have you, and as he wants you to go as soon as possible I should think the best plan is for you to travel back to England with Philip and Tony next week."

It was typical of Lady Susan that she wasted no time in repining, but promptly proceeded to sketch out a definite plan of action.

"But what about you?" asked Ann with some concern.

"I'll come with you all as far as Paris, and there you can drop me to do some stopping. I shall stay two or three weeks, I expect."

Ann's face still remained clouded. She felt that it was hardly fair to desert Lady Susan so suddenly, much as she longed to join Robin as speedily as possible.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather I stayed with you a little longer?" she suggested earnestly. "I'm sure Robin could manage for a few weeks—especially as he will have Maria Coombe."

Lady Susan's quick dark eyes flashed over her.

"Who is Maria Coombe?" she demanded.

Ann laughed.

"Maria Coombe is a host in herself," she answered. "She's an old Devonshire servant who was with my mother originally. I believe she came to Lovell when she was about eighteen as kitchen-maid. Then, when Robin and I were kiddies she was our nurse, and after we grew too old to need one she stayed on in a sort of general capacity. I never remember life without Maria until she got married. Her husband was killed in the war, and now she's coming to Oldstone Cottage to look after us. I'm so delighted about it," she added. "It will be like old times having Maria around again."

"That's really nice for you," agreed Lady Susan heartily. "Still, I think"—smiling—"Robin will be glad to have his sister, too. And you needn't worry about me in the least. I've heaps of friends in Paris. Besides, Brett Forrester—my scapegrace nephew—is there now, and he and I always amuse each other."

"Tony knows him, doesn't he? He mentioned having met him in London, I remember."

"Yes. I believe they both belong to the same gambling set in town—more's the pity!" replied Lady Susan, with grim disapproval. "The only difference between them being that Brett gambles and can afford to do it, while Tony gambles—and can't. I haven't seen Brett for a long time now," she went on musingly. "Not since last August, when he was yachting and put in at Silverquay Bay for a few days. He's always tearing about the world, though he rarely troubles to keep me informed of his whereabouts. I wish to goodness he'd marry and settle down!"

A sudden puff of wind blew in through the open window, disarranging the grouping of a vaseful of flowers, and Ann crossed the room to rectify the damage. Lady Susan's eyes followed her meditatively. She liked the girl's supple ease of movement, the clean-cut lines of her small, pointed face. There was something very distinctive about her, she reflected, and she had to the full that odd charm of elusive, latent femininity which is so essentially the attribute of the modern girl with her boyish lines and angles.

"I shall miss you dreadfully, Ann!" she exclaimed impulsively. "I wish you belonged to me."

She was hardly conscious of the line of thought which had prompted the spontaneous speech. Ann turned round smilingly.

"It's dear of you to say so," she replied. "I shall insist on Robin's letting me come over to White Windows as often as I like—and as you will have me!"

Lady Susan laughed and kissed her.

"You'd better not promise too much—or I shall want to abduct you altogether!" she declared. "I think Robin's a very lucky young man."

Once the date of her departure for England was actually fixed, it seemed to Ann as though the days positively flew by. There were a hundred and one things requiring attention. Sleeping-berths must be booked on board the train, last visits paid to various friends and acquaintances, and final arrangements made with regard to the shutting up of Mon Reve. Last, but not least, there was the packing up of Ann's own personal belongings, which, in the course of the last six months, seemed to have strayed away into various odd corners of the villa, as is the way of things.

But it was all accomplished at last, and close on midnight the little party of four travellers stood on the deserted platform at Montricheux, watching the great Orient Express thunder up alongside. Followed a hurried gathering together of hand-baggage, a scramble up the steep steps of the railway coach, a piercing whistle, and the train pulled out of the station and went rocking on its way through the starry darkness of the night.



CHAPTER IX

OLDSTONE COTTAGE

The journey from Montricheux to London accomplished, Ann was speeding through the familiar English country-side once more and finding it doubly attractive after her six months' sojourn abroad. The train slowed down to manipulate a rather sharp curve in the line as it approached Silverquay station, and she peered eagerly out of the window to see the place which was henceforth to mean home to her. She caught a fleeting glimpse of white cliffs, crowned with the waving green of woods, of the dazzling blue of a bay far below, and of a straggling, picturesque village which climbed the side of a steep hill sloping upward from the shore. Over all lay the warm haze of early July sunshine. Then the train ran into the station and she had eyes only for Robin's tall, straight figure as he came striding along the platform to meet her.

Brother and sister resembled each other but slightly. In place of Ann's tempestuous coppery hair Robin was endowed with sober brown, and for her golden-hazel eyes, with their changeful lights, nature had substituted in him a pair of serious greenish-brown ones. But they were attractive eyes, for all that, with a steady, "trustable" expression in them that reminded one of the eyes of a nice fox terrier.

"Robin!" Ann sprang out of the railway-carriage and precipitated herself upon him with unconcealed delight. "Oh, my dear, how are you? Let me have a good look at you!"

She pushed him a little away from her and her eyes flashed over his face and figure searchingly. Then she nodded as though satisfied with her inspection. Whereas when she had last seen him he had limped a bit as a consequence of his wound, to-day he had crossed the platform with the old, easy, swinging stride of the pre-war Robin, and although his face was still rather on the thin side, it had lost the look of delicacy which, a year ago, had worried her considerably.

"Isn't this all simply splendid, Robin?" she said gaily, as, after giving her luggage in charge of a porter, they made their way out of the station. "Never tell me dreams don't come true after this—if you dream them hard enough!"

He smiled down at her. Her spontaneous enthusiasm was infectious.

"It certainly looks as if they do," he agreed. "Here's our trap. Jump in!"

She regarded the smart ralli-cart and bright bay cob with interest. The latter, held with difficulty by a lad Robin had left in charge, was dancing gently between the shafts, impatient to be off.

"Our trap?" queried Ann.

"Yes. It goes with the cottage," explained Robin. "Coventry's been awfully decent over everything. Of course, he provides me with a gee to get about on, but as soon as he heard I had a sister coming to live with me he sent down this pony and cart from his own stables. Naturally, I told him that that kind of thing wasn't included in the bond, but he shut me up with the remark that no woman could be expected to settle down at the back of beyond unless she had something to drive."

"He must be an extremely nice young man," commented Ann, as she settled herself in the trap.

Robin gathered up the reins and they set off, the sleek little cob at once breaking into a sharp trot which carried them swiftly along the leafy country road.

"Coventry's not very young," observed Robin, as they sped along. "Must be six or seven and thirty, at least. And I don't think you would describe him as 'nice' if you'd met him. He's very brusque in his manner at times, and I don't fancy women figure much in his scheme of existence."

"Oh, well, he's of no importance beyond being the source of a perfectly topping billet for you." Ann brushed the owner of Heronsmere off the map with an airy wave of her hand. "He's quite at liberty to enjoy his womanless Eden as far as I'm concerned. Men—other than extremely nice brothers, of course!—are really far more bother than they're worth. They're—they're so unexpected"—with a swift recollection of the upsetting vagaries of mood exhibited by a certain member of the sex.

Robin threw her a brief glance, then, drawing his whip lightly across the cob's glossy flanks, he asked casually:

"And how did you leave the Brabazons?"

"They're both looking very fit after three months in Switzerland, of course, but I think Tony found it a bit boring compared with Monte Carlo. They came straight on to Montricheux from Mentone, you know."

"Tony still gambles as much as ever, then?"

Ann's face clouded.

"I'm afraid he does," she acknowledged. "At least, whenever he gets the chance."

"Well, he won't get much chance down at Lorne," remarked Robin philosophically.

"They're not going down to Lorne yet. They go back to Audley Square till the end of this month. That's quite long enough for Tony to get into trouble"—ruefully. "Lady Susan says he plays a lot in her nephew's set—that's the Brett Forrester Tony sometimes speaks of as such a fine bridge player."

"I've heard of Forrester from other people," observed Robin. "He's got the reputation of being one of the most dare-devil gamblers in London—in every shape and form. Cards, horses, roulette—anything you like as long as it's got the element of chance in it."

Ann's brows drew together.

"That may be all right for Mr. Forrester. As Lady Susan says, he can afford to throw money away if he chooses. Tony can't, you know. Sir Philip's pretty strict over his allowance."

"I'm rather anxious to meet your Lady Susan," said Robin. "It was very decent of her to let you leave her almost at once like that."

"Lady Susan always would do the decent thing, I think," returned Ann, smiling. "The other thing doesn't seem to occur to her. You'll meet her before long, as she comes straight home from Paris. Isn't it strange that you should get this berth and that we should come to live quite close to her?"

"'M. Rather a coincidence." Robin, occupied in restraining a sudden tendency on the part of the pony to frolic a little as they neared home, replied somewhat abstractedly. He was a good whip, and under his quiet handling the cob soon steadied down to a more reasonable gait and finally pulled up decorously at a green-painted gateway. A diminutive and hugely self-important young urchin, whom Ann learned later to know as Billy Brewster, the odd-job boy, appeared simultaneously and flew to the pony's head, grasping his bridle with as much promptitude as if there were imminent danger of his bolting at sight. Billy's ultimate ambition in life was to be a groom—he adored horses—and although, at present, the exigencies of fate ordained that boots, coals, and knives should be added to his lot, he proposed to lose no opportunity of acquiring the right touch of smartness requisite for his future profession.

Ann laughed as she passed through the gate which Robin held open for her, while Billy touched his hat rapturously for the third time.

"Who is that fascinating imp?" she asked. "Is he one of our retainers, Robin?"

He nodded, smiling.

"That's Billy. He does everything Maria doesn't choose to do, in addition to grooming the horses. You will observe he is the complete groom—minus livery!"

Ann's eager glance swept the low, two-storied cottage which faced her. It was a cosy, home-like looking little house, approached by a wide flagged path bordered with sweet, old-fashioned country flowers. One of its walls was half concealed beneath a purple mist of wistaria, while on the other side of the porch roses nodded their heads right up to the very eaves of the roof. From the green-clothed porch itself clustered trumpets of honeysuckle bloom poured forth their meltingly sweet perfume on the air. And framed in the green and gold of the honeysuckle, her face wreathed in smiles, stood the comfortable figure of Maria Coombe.

Ann was conscious of a sudden tightening about her throat. The sight of Maria, with her shrewd, kindly eyes smiling above her plump pink cheeks, and her hands thrust deep into the big, capacious pockets of her snowy apron, just as she remembered her in the long-ago nursery days at Lovell, brought back a flood of tender memories—of the old home in Devon which she had loved so intensely, of Virginia, frail and sweet, filling the place of that dead mother whom she had never known, of all that had gone to make up the happy, care-free days of childhood.

"Maria!" With a cry Ann fled up the flagged path, and the nest moment Maria's arms had enveloped her and she was coaxing and patting and hugging her just as she had done through a hundred childish tragedies in years gone by, with the soft, slurred Devon brogue making familiar music in Ann's ears.

"There now, there now, miss dear, don't 'ee take on like that. 'Tis a cup of tea you be wanting, sure's I'm here. An' I've a nice drop of water nearing the boil to make it for you."

She drew Ann into the living-room—a pleasant sunshiny room with a huge open hearth that promised roaring fires when winter came—and whisked away into the back regions to brew the tea.

Ann smiled up at Robin rather dewily.

"Oh, Robin, we ought to be awfully happy here!" she exclaimed. As she spoke, like a shadow passing betwixt her and the sun, came the memory of the morning at Montricheux, when she had been waiting for Lady Susan's coming and some vague foreboding of the future had knocked warningly at the door of her consciousness. For a moment the walls of the little room seemed to melt away, dissolving into thick folds of fog which rolled towards her in ever darker and darker waves, threatening to engulf her. Instinctively she stretched out her hand to ward them off, but they only drew nearer, closing round her relentlessly. And then, just as she felt that there was no escape, and that they must submerge her utterly, there came the rattle of crockery, followed by Maria's heavy tread as she marched into the room carrying the tea-tray, and the illusion vanished.

"There's your tea, Miss Ann and Master Robin, an' some nice hot cakes as I've baked for you." Maria surveyed her handiwork with obvious satisfaction. "And I'm sure I wish you both luck and may a dark woman be the first to cross your threshold."

"You superstitious old thing, Maria!" laughed Robin. "As if it could make twopenny-worth of difference whether a blonde or brunette called upon us first!"

"I don't know nothing about blondes and brunettes, sir," replied Maria, with truth. "But they do say 'twill bring you luck if so be a dark woman's the first to cross your threshold after the New Year's in, and it seems only reasonable that 'twould be the same when you go into a new house."

Unfortunately Maria's hopes were not destined to be fulfilled, as the first person to cross the threshold of Oldstone Cottage after Ann's arrival was Caroline Tempest, the rector's sister. "Miss Caroline," as she was invariably called by the villagers, was a flat-chested, colourless individual with one of those thin noses which seem to have grown permanently elongated at the point in the process of prying into other people's business. Her hair, once flaxen, was now turning the ugly yellowish grey which is the fair woman's curse, and her eyes were like pale blue china beads.

She appeared, accompanied by the rector, about half an hour after Maria had brought in tea, and seemed overwhelmed to discover that Ann herself had only just arrived.

"I really must apologise," she declared, in the voice of a superior person making a very generous concession. "I quite thought you were expecting your sister yesterday, Mr. Lovell. I told you so, didn't I, Brian?" She appealed to her brother, who nodded rather unhappily. "And we thought we'd like to call as soon as possible and welcome you to the parish."

Ann didn't believe a word of it.

"She knew perfectly well you were expecting me to-day," she declared when, later on, she and Robin found themselves alone again. "Though I haven't the slightest doubt she told that nice brother of hers just what she wished him to believe. She simply wanted to have first look at me so as to be able to give the village to-morrow a full, true, and particular account of what I'm like."

However, she replied to Miss Caroline's apologies with the necessary cordiality demanded by the occasion and, ringing for Maria, ordered fresh tea. The rector protested.

"No, no," he said hastily. "You must be far too tired to want visitors when you've only just come off a long journey. We'll pay our call another day."

Brian Tempest was the very antithesis of his sister—tall and somewhat ascetic-looking, with a face to which one was almost tempted to apply the word beautiful, it was so well-proportioned and cut with the sure fineness of a cameo. His dark hair was sprinkled with grey at the temples, and beneath a broad, tranquil brow looked out a pair of kindly, luminous eyes that were neither all brown nor all grey. Later, when she knew him better, Ann was wont to inform him that his eyes were a "heather mixture—like tweed." Small, fine lines puckered humorously at their corners, and there was humour, too, in the long, thin-lipped mouth.

Robin and Ann brushed aside his protest with a hearty sincerity there was no mistaking. Whatever each of them might feel concerning Miss Caroline, they were in complete accord in the welcome they extended to her brother. He was no stranger to Robin. The latter had put up at the village inn during the time occupied by Maria Coombe in "cleaning down" the Cottage and making it habitable, and the rector had dropped in to see him in a characteristically informal, friendly fashion on more than one occasion.

The two chatted together while Miss Caroline put Ann through a searching catechism as to her past, present, and future mode of life, including the age at which her parents had died, the particular kind of work she had undertaken during the war—appearing somewhat taken aback when Ann explained that she had driven a car, the making of shirts and mufflers coming more within the scope of Caroline's own idea as to what was "suitable" work for a young girl—and the length of time she had lived with Lady Susan. The coincidence of Robin's obtaining a post in the neighbourhood of Lady Susan's home impressed her enormously, as fate's unexpected shufflings of the cards invariably do impress those whose existence is passed in a very narrow groove.

"It's really most extraordinary!" she declared, scrutinising Ann much as though she suspected her of having somehow juggled matters in order to produce such a phenomenon. "Did you hear that, Brian? Miss Lovell has been living with our dear Lady Susan." She spoke as if she held proprietary rights in Lady Susan. "Isn't it extraordinary that now she and her brother should have come to live so near White Windows?"

"I think it's a very charming happening," replied the rector, "since Oldstone Cottage is even nearer to the rectory!"

He smiled across at Ann—a quick, sympathetic smile that seemed to establish them on a footing of friendly intimacy at once.

"Really," went on Miss Caroline, doggedly pursuing the line of thought to the bitter end of her commonplace mind, "it's as though it were meant in some way—that you should come to Silverquay."

"Probably it was," returned the rector simply, and Ann observed a quiet, dreaming expression come into his eyes—a look of inner vision, tranquilly content and confident.

"Fancy if it turns out like that!" exclaimed Miss Caroline. "It would be a most singular thing, wouldn't it, if it was really intended?"

"Not at all," answered Brian composedly. "You're speaking as though you regarded the Almighty as a thoughtless kind of person who would let things happen, just anyhow."

"Brian!" Miss Caroline's tones shuddered with shocked reproach. Her brother often shocked her; he seemed to think of God as simply and naturally as he might of any other friend. She herself, in the course of her parochial work in the village, habitually represented Him as a somewhat prying and easily offended individual who kept a particularly sharp eye on the inhabitants of Silverquay.

She hastily turned the conversation on to less debatable ground.

"We shall have quite a lot of fresh people in the neighbourhood," she remarked sociably. "Mr. Coventry himself is a stranger to us all, and then there will be a new-comer at the Priory, too."

"Mrs. Hilyard, you mean?" said Robin.

"Yes." Miss Caroline looked full of importance. "I hear she arrives to-day. The carrier told our cook that he was ordered to meet the four-thirty train this afternoon—to fetch a quantity of luggage."

"Is there a Mr. Hilyard?" asked Ann casually. She could see that Miss Caroline was bursting with gossipy news which she was aching to impart.

"No, she's a widow, I hear, and very wealthy. The furniture that's been coming down by rail is of most excellent quality—most excellent!"

"How do you know, Caroline?" inquired the rector, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

"Well, entirely by accident, I happened to be taking a basin of chicken broth to old Mrs. Skinner—you know, she lives in one of the Priory cottages—on the very day the pantechnicons were delivering at the house, and I saw quite a number of the chairs and tables as they were being carried in."

The twinkle in Brian's eyes grew more pronounced.

"I'm afraid you must have stood and watched the unloading process, then."

"Well, I suppose I did—just for a minute," she acknowledged, adding with some asperity: "It would be quite fitting if you took a little keener interest in future parishioners, Brian."

"My interest in my future parishioners is quite keen, I assure you—though I don't know that it extends to their furniture," replied the rector, laughing.

"Oh, well, it's nice to know that some one has taken the Priory who is in a position to keep it up properly," persisted his sister. "Don't you agree, Miss Lovell?"

"Of course," said Ann. "Besides"—smiling across at the rector—"as we're as poor as church mice, it's just as well the new arrival at the Priory should he rich—to even things up."

"I think it's all very interesting," pursued Miss Caroline, still intent on her own train of thought. "Here's Mr. Coventry come home at last to live at Heronsmere—a very eligible bachelor—and with this Mrs. Hilyard, a wealthy widow, living so near by it wouldn't be at all surprising if something came of it."

The rector jumped up, laughing good-humouredly.

"Caroline! Caroline! I must really take you home after that, or Miss Lovell will think Silverquay is a veritable hot-bed of gossip. Coventry hasn't been in the neighbourhood a month, poor man, and here you are trying to tie him up with a lady who doesn't even arrive until this afternoon!"

"Besides," suggested Robin, smiling broadly, "she may be a really disconsolate widow, you know."

Miss Caroline shook her head.

"I don't think so," she answered obstinately. "The furniture didn't look like it. One of the packages was a little torn, and I caught sight of the curtains inside. They were rose colour."

"That was really quite bright of Miss Caroline," observed Ann with some amusement, when the rector and his sister had started for home. "Only she didn't know it!"



CHAPTER X

A DISCOVERY

The morning breeze darted in and out of Ann's bedroom like a child tentatively trying to inveigle a grown-up person into playing hide-and-seek. With every puff a big cluster of roses, which had climbed to the sill, swayed forward and peeped inside, sending a whiff of delicate perfume across to where Ann was kneeling, surrounded by trunks and suitcases, unpacking her belongings. Pleasant little sounds of life floated up from outdoors—the clucking of a hen, the stamping of the bay cob as Billy Brewster groomed him, whistling softly through his teeth while he brushed and curry-combed, the occasional honk of a motor-horn as a car sped by in the distance. Then came the beat of a horse's hoofs, stopping abruptly outside the cottage gate.

Ann did not pause in her occupation of emptying a hatbox of its tissue-shrouded contents. Robin had ridden away almost immediately after breakfast, so she merely supposed that, having started early, he had returned early. But a minute later Maria was standing in the doorway of the room, her broad face red with the exertion of hurrying upstairs, her eyes blinking excitedly.

"'Tis Mr. Coventry himself, miss," she announced. "He didn't inquire if any one was at home, but just followed me in and asked me to tell Master Robin he was here."

Ann rose reluctantly from her knees, dusting her hands together.

"All right, Maria, I'll go down and see him. Perhaps he can leave a message with me for Robin. I hope, though," she added with a faint sense of irritation, "that he isn't going to make a habit of dropping in here in the mornings."

Only pausing to push back a stray lock of hair, she ran quickly downstairs and into the living-room.

"I'm so sorry"—she began speaking almost as she crossed the threshold—"but my brother is out."

With a stifled ejaculation the man standing in the shadow of the tall, old-fashioned chimneypiece wheeled round, and Ann found herself looking straight into the grey eyes of the Englishman from Montricheux. For a moment there was a silence—the silence of utter mutual astonishment, while Ann was wretchedly conscious of the flush that mounted slowly to her very temples. The man was the first to recover himself.

"So," he said, "you are Miss Lovell!"

Something in his tone stung Ann into composure.

"Yes," she replied coolly. "You don't sound altogether pleased at the discovery."

"Pleased?" His eyes rested on her with a species of repressed annoyance. "It doesn't make much difference whether we're—either of us—pleased or not, does it?"

His meaning appeared perfectly plain to Ann. For some reason which she could not fathom he found her appearance on the scene the very reverse of pleasing.

"I don't see that it matters in any case," she replied frostily. "The fact that I happen to be your agent's sister doesn't compel you to see any more of me than you wish to."

"True. And if I'd known you were here I wouldn't have come blundering in this morning."

"I arrived yesterday," vouchsafed Ann. "Won't you sit down?" she added with perfunctory politeness. She seated herself, and in obedience to her gesture he mechanically followed suit.

"Yes, you were expected to-day, weren't you? I'd forgotten," he said abstractedly.

No one particularly enjoys being assured that they have been forgotten, and Ann's eyes sparkled with suppressed indignation.

"Can I give my brother any message for you?" she asked stiffly.

All at once he smiled—that sudden, singularly sweet smile of his which transformed the harsh lines of his face and which seemed to have so little in common with his habitual brusqueness.

"I've been behaving like a boor, haven't I?" he admitted. "Forgive me. And can't we be friends? After all, I've some sort of claim. I pulled you out of Lac Leman—or rather, prevented your tumbling into it, you know."

He spoke with a curious persuasive charm. There was something almost boyishly disarming about his manner. It was as though for a moment a prickly, ungracious husk had dropped away, revealing the real man within. He held out his hand, and as Ann laid hers within it she felt her spirits rising unaccountably.

"I hope you'll like it here," he pursued. He glanced round with a discontented expression. "Does the cottage furniture satisfy you? Is it what you like?"

"It's perfectly charming," she replied whole-heartedly. "I love old-fashioned things."

"Well, if there's anything you'd like altered or want sending down, you must let me know. There are stacks of stuff up at Heronsmere."

"You've already sent down the one thing to complete my happiness," she answered, smiling. "That jolly little pony."

"Oh, Dick Turpin. Do you like him?"

"Is that his name? Yes, I like him immensely. Thank you so much for sending him." She paused, then added rather shyly: "I always seem to be thanking you for something, don't I? First for rescuing my bag at the Kursaal, then for rescuing me, and now for Dick Turpin!"

"You can't do without a cob"—briefly. "Do you ride?"

She nodded.

"Yes. I thought of riding him sometimes. Does he ride all right?"

"Oh, he's quiet enough. But if you want to hunt next winter, you must let me mount you." His glance rested on her slim, boyish contours. "I've a little thoroughbred mare up at Heronsmere—Redwing, she's called—who would carry you perfectly."

"Oh, I couldn't—you mustn't—" she began with some embarrassment.

"Nonsense!" He interrupted her brusquely. "What are you going to do down here if you don't ride and drive? Lovell will have his work. But you won't."

"I'm proposing to keep chickens," announced Ann. "I'm not in the least an idle person. You lose the habit if you've earned your own living for several years," she added, with a touch of amusement.

"Have you done that?"

She assented.

"Of course I have. You can't live on air, you know, and as my father didn't leave us much else, Robin and I both had to work."

He regarded her with brooding eyes. She was so gay and cheery about it all that, against his will, his thoughts were driven back amongst old memories, recalling another woman he had known who had chosen to escape from poverty by a different road from the clean, straight one of hard work. She had funked the sharp corners of life, that other, in a way in which this girl with the clear, brown-gold eyes that met the World so squarely would never funk them.

Before he could formulate any answer there came the sound of the house-door opening and closing. He rose hastily from his chair.

"Ah! That must be your brother!" he exclaimed, a note of what sounded almost like relief in his voice. He seemed glad of the distraction, and shook hands cordially with Robin when he came in.

"I'm sorry I was out," began the latter. But Coventry cut short his apologies.

"Don't apologise," he said. "It has given Miss Lovell and myself the opportunity of renewing our acquaintance."

Robin looked from one to the other in surprise.

"Have you met before, then?" he asked.

Ann explained.

"At Montricheux," she replied. "Mr. Coventry saved me from a watery grave on the night of the Venetian Fete there."

"From nothing more dangerous than a wetting, actually," interpolated Coventry in his abrupt way.

"Well, even that's something to be thankful for," returned Robin, smiling. "Will you smoke?"

He offered his cigarette-case, and the two men lit up.

"I've just been over to see Farmer Sparkes," he continued. "He's put in a list as long as your arm of repairs he wants doing."

Coventry laughed good-humouredly.

"I suppose they'll all be sticking me for alterations and repairs now I've come back," he said. "What's the use of a landlord unless you can squeeze something out of him?"

"I'm afraid there is a bit of that attitude about most tenants," admitted Robin. "I expect the new owner of the Priory will get let in for the same thing. One or two of the Priory cottages want doing up, it's true."

"Have you seen her yet, Robin?" inquired Ann quickly, with feminine curiosity.

"Mrs. Hilyard, do you mean? No, I didn't come across her this morning."

"Who did you say?" asked Coventry.

Something in the quality of his voice brought Ann's eyes swiftly to his face. All the geniality had gone out of it. It was set and stern, and there was an odd watchfulness in the glance he levelled at Robin as he spoke.

"Mrs. Hilyard—the new owner of the Priory," explained Robin. "She arrived yesterday."

"Hilyard?" repeated Coventry. "Some one told me the name was Hilton. You don't know what Hilyard she is, I suppose?"

"No, I don't know anything about her. But Hilyard's a fairly common name."

"Yes, I suppose it's fairly common," agreed Coventry slowly.

As though to dismiss the topic, he returned to the matter of the repairs required on Sparkes' farm, and for a few minutes the two men were engrossed in details connected with the management of the estate. But Ann noticed that Coventry seemed curiously abstracted. He allowed his cigarette to smoulder between his fingers till it went out beneath their pressure, and presently, bringing the discussion with Robin to a sudden close, he got up to go. He tendered his farewell somewhat abruptly, mounted his horse, which had been standing tethered to the gateway by its bridle, and rode away at a hand-gallop.

Ann made no comment at the time, as Robin seemed rather preoccupied with estate matters, but over dinner in the evening she broached the subject upon which she had been exercising her mind at intervals throughout the day.

"Robin, did you notice Mr. Coventry's expression when you mentioned Mrs. Hilyard?"

Robin looked up doubtfully from one of Maria's beautifully grilled cutlets.

"His expression? No, I don't think I was looking at him particularly. He thought she was called Hilton, or something, didn't he?"

Ann went off into a small gale of laughter.

"Does a man ever notice anything unless it's right under his nose?" she demanded dramatically of the universe at large. "My dear," she went on, "his face altered the instant you mentioned Mrs. Hilyard's name."

"Well, but why should it?" demanded Robin, still at sea.

"I think," she pronounced oracularly, "that a Mrs. Hilyard must have played a rather important part in Mr. Coventry's life at one time or another."

"Well, it's no business of ours if she did," responded Robin unsympathetically.

"No. But it would be queer if the Mrs. Hilyard who's bought the Priory happened to be the other Mrs. Hilyard—the one Mr. Coventry knew before."

"We've no grounds for assuming that he ever knew a Mrs. Hilyard at all, and if he did—as I said before, it's no business of ours."

There never was a real woman yet who failed to be intrigued by the suggestion of a romance lying dormant in the past life of a man of her acquaintance, and Ann was far too essentially feminine to pretend that her interest was not piqued.

"No, of course it's no business of ours," she agreed. "But still, one may take an intelligent interest in one's fellow beings, I suppose."

"It depends upon circumstances," replied Robin. "I'm here as Coventry's agent, and my employer's private affairs are no concern of mine."

There was just a suspicion of the "elder brother" in his manner—only a suspicion, but it was quite sufficient to arouse all the latent contrariety of woman which Ann possessed.

"Well, Mrs. Hilyard isn't your employer," she retorted. "So I've a perfect right to feel interested in her."

"But not in her relation to Mr. Coventry," maintained Robin seriously.

The corners of Ann's mouth curled up in a mutinous smile, and her eyes danced.

"My dear Robin, you can't insulate a woman as you can an electric wire—at least, not if she has any pretensions to good looks."

"No, I suppose you can't," he admitted, smiling back unwillingly. "More's the pity, sometimes!"

There, for the moment, the subject dropped, but the imp of mischief still flickered defiantly in the golden-brown eyes, and when, after dinner was over, Maria brought in the coffee, Ann threw out a tentative remark which instantly achieved its nefarious purpose of loosening the springs of Maria's garrulity.

"They be telling up a tale in the village about the new lady as has taken the Priory," began Maria conversationally.

Ann sugared her coffee with an air of detachment, and watched Robin fidgeting out of the tail of her eye.

"You shouldn't listen to gossip, Maria," she reprimanded primly.

"Well, miss, 'tis true folks say you shouldn't believe all you hear, and 'tis early days to speak, seeing she's scarcely into her house yet, as you may say."

"You give me an uncomfortable feeling that she spent the night on the doorstep," observed Ann.

"Oh, no, miss," replied Maria, matter-of-factly. "She slept in her bed all right last night. But maybe, for all that, it's true what folks are saying," she added darkly. "I'd run out of sugar, so I just stepped round to the grocer this evening after tea, and he told me 'twas all the tale in the village that this Mrs. Hilyard isn't a widow at all, and some of them think she's no better than she should be."

An ejaculation of annoyance broke from Robin.

"The tittle-tattle in these twopenny-halfpenny villages is almost past believing!" he exclaimed angrily. "Here's an absolute new-comer arrives in the district, and they've begun taking away the poor woman's character already."

"Well, sir, of course I'm only speaking what I hear," replied Maria, who, with all her good points—and they were many—had the true West Country relish for any titbit of gossip, whether with or without foundation. "Let's hope 'tisn't true. But they say her clothes do be good enough for the highest lady in the land. Mrs. Thorowgood—her that's been helping up to the Priory all day—called in on her way home just to pass the time of day with me. It seems Mrs. Hilyard has arranged she shall wash for her, and she was taking a few of her things home with her for to wash to-morrow. And she told me her own self, did Mrs. Thorowgood, that the lace on them be so fine as spider's web."

Ann endeavoured to conceal her mirth and reply with becoming gravity.

"Maria, dear, if a disreputable character is considered inseparable from pretty undies in Silverquay, I'm afraid I shall get as bad a reputation as Mrs. Hilyard," she suggested meekly.