have no respect for a man who lets his life be ruined by a woman. Heavens, supposing we—we women——”

“You can’t have everything, and a man who can write like Byam Warner——”

“Don’t believe you ever read a line of him. What on earth has a leader of ton to do with poetry, unless, to be sure, to read up a bit before caging the lion for a dinner where everybody will bore the poor wretch to death by quoting his worst lines at him. As for Warner there is no question that he writes even better than before he went to the dogs, and that, to my mind, is proof that he holds his gifts in fief from the devil not from Almighty God——”

“Out upon you for a bigot. I should think you had lived in this world long enough——”

“Was there ever on this earth a more virtuous court than our young Queen’s, Maria Hunsdon?”

“It is too good to last. And it is not so long ago——”

“Let us be permitted to forget the court of that iniquitous man”—Anne could see a large-veined hand wave in the direction of a long portrait of George IV.—“since we are mercifully and at last permitted so to do. Besides,” changing the subject hastily, “I believe in predestination. You forget that although married these thousand years to an Englishman I am a Scot by birth——”

But Anne heard no more, although her ears were thirsty. Mrs. Nunn brought her amiable nothings to a close, and a moment later they were ascending the great staircase, where the pretty little Queen and her stately husband smiled alike on the just and the unjust.

Mrs. Nunn entered Anne’s room before passing on to her own. As hostess to her young relative whose income would not have permitted her to visit this most fashionable of winter cities uninvited, it behooved her to see that the guest lacked no comfort. She was a selfish old woman, but she rarely forgot her manners.

“These coloured servants are so inefficient,” she remarked as she peered into the water jars and shook the mosquito netting. “This is my third visit here, so they are as disposed to respect my orders as their limited intelligence and careless habits will permit. I should always advise you to look in and under the bed—not for bad characters, but for caterpillars as long as your two hands, to say nothing of ants. There are no snakes on the island, but I believe land crabs have been seen on the stairs, and I am sure I never should recover if I got into bed with one. The maid will bring your coffee about six. I shall not appear till the half-after-nine breakfast.”

“Then you will not mind if I go out for a walk?”

“Dear me, no. This is not London. But of course you will not permit a gentleman to attend you.”

“As I do not know any——”

“But you will,” said Mrs. Nunn amiably. “You are handsome, my dear, if not quite à la mode. I am glad you must wear white in this climate. It becomes you far better than black. Good night.”

She was gone at last. Anne locked the door that she might know to the full the joy of being alone. She shook down her hair impatiently. In spite of her twenty-two years, she had worn it in pendant braids, save at the dinner hour, until her capture by Mrs. Nunn. It was rich, heavy, dark hair, bright with much gold, worn in a bunch of curls on either side of the face and coiled low on the neck. Anne made a little face at herself in the glass. She knew that she possessed a noble, straight, full figure, but she saw no beauty in the sunburnt skin, the square jaw, the eyebrows as wide as her finger. Her mouth was also too large, her eyelashes too short. She had her ideals of beauty, and, having read many romances, they were the conventional ideals of the day. She smiled at her aunt’s hint that she might find favour in the eyes of the beaux of Bath House. She knew nothing of the jargon of “the world,” nothing of men. Nor did she desire knowledge of either. Even had her father shown any disposition to part with his only companion, she would have refused Mrs. Nunn’s invitations to pass a season in London, for she lived an inner life which gave her an increasing distaste for realities. It was before the day when women, unimpelled by poverty or genius, flew to the ink-pot with their over-burdened imaginations. To write a book had never occurred to Anne, although she had led a lonely life in a forgotten corner of England where even her duties were few; the old servants knew their tasks before she was born, and her father preferred his pen and his laboratory to the society of his daughter. She must preside at his table, but between whiles she could spend her time on the sea or the moors, in the library or with her needlework—the era of governesses passing—as she listed.

And the wild North Sea, the moors and her books, above all, her dreams, had sufficed. Her vivid and intense imagination had translated her surroundings into the past, into far-off countries of which she knew as much as any traveller, oftener and still oftener to the tropics, to this very island of Nevis. Then, suddenly, her father had died, leaving her, until she reached the age of five-and-twenty, in the guardianship of his sister, Mrs. Nunn, who purposed making her favourite pilgrimage the following winter, insisted that Anne accompany her, and finally rented the manor over her head that she be forced to comply. The truth was she intended to marry the girl as soon as possible and had no mind that she should squander any more of her youth unseen by man. The shrewd old woman knew the value of that very ignorance of convention, that lack of feminine arts and wiles, so assiduously cultivated by young ladies in the matrimonial market, that suggestion of untrammelled nature, so humbly deprecated by Anne. Moreover, concluded Mrs. Nunn, ruffling herself, she was a Percy and could not but look well-bred, no matter how ill she managed her hoop or curled her hair.

But although Mrs. Nunn could appraise the market value of a comely exterior and the more primitive charms of nature, of Anne Percy she knew nothing. She had puzzled for a moment at the vehement refusal of the young recluse to visit the West Indies, and even more at her ill-suppressed exultation when she realised that the migration was settled. But, she concluded, there was no accounting for the vagaries of the girl-brain, and dismissed the subject. Of the deep and passionate maturity of Anne Percy’s brain, of the reasons for the alternate terror and delight at the prospect of visiting Nevis, she had not a suspicion. If she had she would have hastened to leave her to the roar of the North Sea and the wild voices of the moor.

CHAPTER III

Anne, free of the tight gown in which she had encased her rebellious form for the benefit of the fine folk of Bath House, wrapped herself in a long black mantle, drew down the curving glass globes that protected the candles from draught and insects, and stepped out upon her balcony. She even closed the window behind her; and then at last she felt that she was indeed on Nevis—and alone. Before her rose the dark cone of the old volcano, its graceful sweep dim against the background of stars; and the white cloud that ever floated about its summit like the ghost of dead fires was crawling down the slopes to the little town at its base. From this small but teeming capital came fitful sounds of music and of less decorous revelry, and its lights seemed to flit through the groves of palm and cocoanut trees, gently moving in the night breeze.