he said. "And if we can only borrow a trap, perhaps we shall be able to get back to Yelverton in time for dinner, after all. It must be somewhere about half-past four now. I am afraid you will never come out with me again, Mrs. Lancing. You see things can go crookedly with me at times! I am certainly out of luck to-day."

"I don't call this unlucky," Camilla said softly; and she nestled a little closer to him. She was meeting him on familiar ground at last.

They came after a while upon a kind of village, in which the lights of the one shop—a post office and general stores combined—shone hospitably.

The keeper of the stores, a portly, good-natured man, could suggest no better help for the motor than to borrow a couple of horses from the nearest farm and tow the car away from the road. He amiably consented to lend his trap to drive Mrs. Lancing to the nearest station, distant about three miles, and when this was arranged, Mrs. Lancing remained at the stores, where a cup of tea was forthcoming, whilst Haverford went back into the mist to set matters right with his chauffeur.

Divested of his heavy coat, the man had crawled under the body of the car, from whence he emerged very red in the face and very greasy.

"Found it all right, sir," he said. "One of the nuts has sheered in the differential shaft." He declared his ability, however, to set the whole thing right in the course of the next few hours. Agreeing with Mr. Haverford that it would be a good thing to get the car off the road, as it was an obstruction, Haverford did not leave the village till he had arranged to give his man all the assistance possible. This done, he lifted Camilla Lancing into the tall cart that was used to dispense the goods from the stores, and they started for the station. To exchange the luxurious armchair of the motor for a hard, slippery seat where balance was most difficult, over a rough country road, was not the most delightful experience in the world; but Camilla laughed at all discomfort. Her good nature was really marvellous. Most women would have been tired and cross and difficult. Mrs. Lancing, however, made the best of everything. Even when the station was reached, and they found they would have some time to wait, and then change trains before reaching the nearest point to Yelverton, Camilla accepted the discomfort philosophically.

"I know you are dying to smoke. Leave me here; this is quite a cosy place; perhaps I will go to sleep," she said, as she passed into the waiting-room.

He obeyed her reluctantly.

She looked so pretty, so pathetic, with the pallor of fatigue robbing her cheeks of their usual delicate bloom. He stood looking at her with a kind of frown on his face for a moment, but he said nothing, and, to get rid of him, she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the hard wooden wall.

Her lips trembled as he went out and closed the door.

She was a creature who lived absolutely from moment to moment; who had the knack of separating herself from the most tenacious trouble to bask in the warmth and glitter of a passing gaiety. Naturally these delightful moments were followed by spells of reaction, when her volatile spirit would sink to such depths of depression that all energy, all hope, would appear to be swamped. But she had the optimism of a gambler; let chance only give her the smallest opportunity, and she revived again.

Agnes Brenton (the woman with whom she was staying and a very old friend) had once likened her to an indiarubber ball.

"Camilla is an enchanting creature, a dear, sweet, womanly soul, but you can never make a lasting impression on her," she had said. "However hardly she is flung about, however sharply she may seem dented, she is bound to come smoothly to the surface again, and show no trace of what has happened."

She was being sharply dented now. In this hour of fatigue and disappointment memory forced open the door she had held closed so resolutely all the day.

On the morrow her visit to Yelverton would end, and she must go back to town—back to the practically impossible task of clearing her daily path of one or two hideous obstacles.

There were some things awaiting that had to be met that sent a shiver of dread through her now as she recalled them. She opened her eyes after a time and sat watching Haverford's tall, long-coated figure pass the window of the waiting-room every now and then.

"And with a scratch of a pen," she said to herself wearily, "he could put all my difficulties straight. Why does he not speak? Sometimes I feel he cares for me more than I have ever been cared for before, then the next moment he chills me; he almost frightens me. He is so reserved, so deliberate. I believe he must be hard. Of course"—her lip curled—"he is cautious, and no doubt he is mean; he is far too rich to be generous."

She repressed her tears with difficulty. She was so truly sorry for herself. Other women (so she pondered) had such ease in their lives; she knew of no other woman who was so lonely as herself, so burdened, so troubled.

She got up impatiently, and, pulling a chair forward, sat down and stared into the fire with wet eyelashes. Her face hardened a little as her mind drifted away from fretful generalities to the practical outlook, to the immutable fact that two and two made four for most people, but in her case required six to be satisfactorily disposed of. Little by little, however, she began, as was her custom, to make a possible pathway for herself out of the tangle of vexatious care that awaited her.

She was amazingly skilful in this sort of thing; no matter how hopelessly involved the future might seem, she usually found some loophole of escape, some tiny thread which, with the ingenuous ingenuity of a child, would be weaved, before she had done with it, into something substantial, on which she could just stand comfortably for a little time.

Rupert Haverford paused by the window about this time. He watched her awhile as she sat thinking so intently, then flung away his cigar and opened the door.

"The train is just due," he said, "and the sea fog is creeping its way here. I shall be very glad to get you home, Mrs. Lancing; I am sure you must be thoroughly tired out. If I might prescribe for you," he added, as they passed out on to the platform, "I should suggest dinner in your room to-night and early bed."

Camilla answered with quick impatience—

"Oh! I couldn't do that, I never go to bed early; and besides, we are going to play bridge to-night. You never play," she said the next moment. "Why, I wonder? Don't you care about the game?"

"I don't care about cards at all," he answered; "a question of habit, I suppose. There was no time for games of any sort in my old life."

"But there is nothing to prevent you enjoying heaps of things now," Mrs. Lancing said restlessly, almost crossly. Then her tone changed. "Let me teach you bridge, it would be such fun! And I don't play half badly for a woman. You shall have your first lesson to-morrow," she decided quite gaily.

Haverford only shook his head.

"I cannot let you waste your time. I shall never play cards."

Camilla felt the warmth and sparkle fade out of her thoughts again.

"Oh," she said, "of course, I remember now! Somebody was telling me only the other day how good you were, that you would never speculate, or bet, or gamble in any shape or form. Lucky man, to be able to take so firm a stand!"

He looked at her quickly; her sneer was unmistakable; he felt uncomfortable and pained, and he suddenly remembered how, as he had sat apart and watched her as she had been playing cards the night before, the expression of her delicately pretty face had given him a sense of trouble, even of uneasiness. Now her words, or rather the tone in which they were said, angered him a little.

They drifted into a silence till the train came, and spoke very little during the journey to the junction, where they were to alight and pick up the London