beauty of it. As she stood looking, her old confident faith that joy cometh in the morning rose in her. Presently she turned away with a merry laugh, and, shrugging her shoulders at Nature's grandmotherly ways, at last drove herself to bed at hard on five o'clock. There was no sound from Trix Trevalla's room when she listened on the way.

Her night was short; eight o'clock found her in the market, buying flowers, flowers, flowers; the room was to be a garden for Trix to-day, and money flew thousand-winged from Peggy's purse. She had just dealt forth her last half-sovereign when she turned to find Tommy Trent at her elbow; he too was laden with roses. 'Oh!' exclaimed Peggy, rather startled, and blushing a little, looking down, too, at her unceremonious morning attire.

'Ah!' said Tommy, pointing at her flowers and shaking his head.

'Well, you've got some too.'

'I was going to leave them for you-just in acknowledgment of the lobsters. What have you bought those for?'

'They're for her,' said Peggy. I shall like to have yours for myself.'

'Nobody ever needed them less, but I'll bring them round,' said he.

They walked together to her door. Then Tommy said :— 'Well, you can tell me?'

'I can tell you part of it—not all,' said Peggy.

Tommy considered a moment. Then he remarked:'You'll probably find that you've got to send for me.'

Peggy raised her brows and looked at him derisively. He returned her gaze placidly, with a pleasant smile. Peggy laughed gently.

'If Mrs. Trevalla is so foolish, I don't mind,' she said.

he mused as he went his way.

Tommy strolled off very happy. The thing moves, I think,' For the more love she had for others, the more and the better might she some day give to him. It is a treasure that grows by spending: such was his reflection, and it seems but fair to record it, since so many instances of a different trend of thought have been exhibited.

CHAPTER XV.

NOT EVERYBODY'S FOOTBALL.

LORD BARMOUTH was incapable of speaking of it-incapable. He said so, and honestly believed himself. Indeed it is possible that under less practised hands he would have revealed nothing. Lady Blixworth, cordially agreeing that the less said the better, extracted a tolerably full account of the whole affair.

'She did, she actually did,' he assured her, as though trying to overcome an inevitable incredulity. I was standing in the middle of the path, and she'—he paused, seeking a word—something to convey the monstrous fact.

'Shoved you off it?' suggested Lady Blixworth, in no difficulty for the necessary word.

'She pushed me violently aside. I all but fell!'

'Then she scuttled off?'

This time he accepted the description. 'Exactly what she did exactly. I can describe it in no other way. She must have

been mad!'

'What can have driven her mad at Barslett?' asked his friend innocently.

'Nothing. We were kindness itself. Her troubles were not due to her visit to us. We made her absolutely one of the family.'

'You tried, you mean,' she suggested.

'Precisely. We tried-with what success you see. It is heart-breaking-heart-'

'And what did Mortimer say?'

'I didn't tell him till the next morning. I can't dwell on the scene. He ran to her room himself; I followed. It was in gross disorder.'

'No!'

'I assure you, yes.

There was no letter, no word for him.

Presently his mother prevailed on him to withdraw.'

'It must have been a shock.'

'I prefer to leave it undescribed. Nobody could attempt to comfort him but our good Sarah Bonfill.'

'Ah, dearest Sarah has a wonderful way!'

'As the day wore on, she induced him to discuss the Trans

Euphratic Railway scheme, in which he is greatly interested. He will be a long while recovering.'

Repressing her inclination to seize an obvious opening for a flippant question, Lady Blixworth gazed sympathetically at the afflicted father.

'And your poor wife?' she asked in gentle tones.

'A collapse-nothing less than a collapse, Viola. The deception that Mrs. Trevalla practised-well, I won't say a word. I had come to like her, and it is too painful-too painful. But there is no doubt that she wilfully deceived us on at least two occasions. The first we forgave freely and frankly; we treated it as if it had never been. The second time was on that evening itself; she misrepresented the result of certain business matters in which she had engaged

'And ran away to avoid being found out?' guessed Lady Blixworth.

'I think I may say, I hope-that she was for the time not responsible for her actions.'

'Where is she now ?'

'I have no information.

done with her.'

We don't desire to know. We have

'Does Mortimer feel like that too?'

'Don't do him the injustice-the injustice, Viola-of supposing anything else. He knows what is due to himself. Fortunately the acute position of public affairs is a distraction.'

'Do tell him to come here. We shall be so glad to see him, Audrey and I. She admires him so much, you know, and I— well, I've known him since he was a boy. Does Sarah know nothing more about Trix's reasons for behaving in such a fashion?'

'In Sarah's opinion Mrs. Trevalla has ruined herself by speculation.'

Lady Blixworth was startled from artifice by the rapture of finding her suspicions justified.

Fricker!' she exclaimed triumphantly.

'There is every reason to believe so-every reason.' There was at least one very good one-namely that Mrs. Bonfill had pieced together Mr. Fricker's letter, read it, and communicated the contents to Lady Barmouth. Lord Barmouth saw no need to be explicit about this; he had refused to read the letter himself,

or to let Mrs. Bonfill speak to him about it. It is, however, difficult for a man not to listen to his wife.

'Well, you never were enthusiastic about the match, were you?'

'She wasn't quite one of us, but I had come to like her.' He paused, and then, after a struggle, broke out candidly, 'I feel sorry for her, Viola.'

'It does you credit,' said Lady Blixworth, and she really thought it did.

In a sense she is to be pitied. It is inevitable that a man like Mortimer should require much from the woman who is to be his wife. It is inevitable. She couldn't reach his standard.'

'Nor yours.'

Our standard for him is very high, very high.' He sighed. 'But I'm sorry for her.'

'What does Sarah say?'

Lord Barmouth looked a little puzzled. He leant forward and observed confidentially, 'It seems to me, Viola, that women of high principle occasionally develop a certain severity of judgment-I call it a severity.'

So do I,' nodded Lady Blixworth heartily.

Barmouth passed rapidly from the dangers of such criticism. 'It is probably essential in the interests of society,' he added, with a return of dignity.

'Oh, probably,' she conceded, with a carelessness appropriate to the subject. Do you think there's another man?'

'I beg your pardon, Viola?' He was obviously astonished, and inclined to be offended.

'Any man she liked or had liked, you know.'

She was engaged to my son.'

That certainly sounded final, but Lady Blixworth was not abashed.

'An engagement is just what brings the idea of the other man back sometimes,' she observed.

We have no reason to suspect it in this case. I will not suspect it without definite grounds. In spite of everything let us be just.'

Lady Blixworth agreed to be just, with a rather weary air. Do give my best love to dear Lady Barmouth, and do send Mortimer to see me,' she implored her distressed visitor, when he took his leave.

The coast was clear. If she knew anything of the heart of man- -as she conceived she did-the juncture of affairs was not unfavourable; ill-used lovers may sometimes be induced to seek softer distractions than Trans-Euphratic or other railways. She. telegraphed to Audrey Pollington to cut short a visit which she was paying in the country. At any rate Audrey would not have ruined herself nor run away. In a spirit not over-complimentary either to Audrey or to Barslett, Lady Blixworth decided that they would just suit one another.

The marriage arranged, &c., will not take place.' When a lady disappears by night, and sends no communication save a telegram, giving no address and asking that her luggage may be consigned to Charing Cross station, to be called for,' it is surely justifiable to insert that curt intimation of happiness frustrated or ruin escaped; the doubt in which light to look at it must be excused, since it represents faithfully the state of Mervyn's mind. He still remembered Trix as he had thought her, still had visions of her as what he had meant her to become; with the actual Trix of fact he was naturally in a fury of outraged self-esteem.

'I would have forgiven her,' he told Mrs. Bonfill, not realising at all that this ceremony or process was the very thing which Trix had been unable to face. In a little while we might have forgotten it, if she had shown proper feeling.'

6

She's the greatest disappointment I ever had in my life,' declared Mrs. Bonfill. Not excepting even Beaufort Chance! I needn't say that I wash my hands of her, Mortimer.' Mrs. Bonfill was very sore; people would take advantage of Trix's escapade to question the social infallibility of her sponsor.

6

We have no alternative,' he agreed gloomily.

'You mustn't think any more about her; you have your

career.'

'I hate the gossip,' he broke out fretfully.

'If you say nothing, it will die away. For the moment it is unavoidable-you are so conspicuous.'

I shall fulfil all my engagements as if nothing had happened.'

Much the best way,' she agreed, recognising a stolid courage about him which commanded some admiration. He was facing what he hated most in the world-ridicule; he was forced to realise one of the things that a man least likes to realise that he has failed to manage a woman whom he has undertaken to