curious Indian air. "I was a beast."

"You always are, Gerald. Once when I was a child a spider bit me—or do spiders sting? Well, it made me a bit sick at first, and then I—forgot it. Good-bye."

The man's nerves were evidently in a bad state, for at her insult his face broke out into a cold perspiration and went very white. "Oh—I am a spider, am I? All right, I am glad I kissed you. Glad I held you close in my arms. You can't undo that, whatever you may say."

She stood quietly swinging her stick, a smile just touching her disdainful mouth. She was purposely being maddening, and she knew to the uttermost the value, as a means of torture to the trembling man before her, of the slight lift of her upper lip as she looked at him.

"Quite finished?" she asked, as he paused. "Then perhaps you'll let me go? Good-bye."

He watched her out of sight, and then wiping his face carefully with his handkerchief, returned to the house.

Crossing the park by a footpath that was now half-buried in fallen leaves, she came out on the high road, and turning to the left, took a steep path leading to the downs.

She walked with unusual rapidity for a woman, climbing the path without relaxing her gait or losing her breath. The sharp, damp air brought to her face colour that Carron had been unable to call up. He was, poor wretch, so utterly secondary to her, that he was as little important as the long-forgotten spider. It was Joyselle who occupied her thoughts, whom her mental eyes saw, as she walked steadily seawards, as plainly as if he had been with her.

The next morning would begin a respite for her, in one sense, for he was going away. His old mother was ill in Falaise, and he was going to see her. "Then," he had added, "I must visit a friend in Paris. I shall not be back before the last of November."

This information he had volunteered to her immediately after lunch, having quite forgotten his resentment at her lack of response to his offers of advice. His quick changes of humour were very puzzling, and continually made her doubt whether she or anyone else knew him at all, though she had too much discrimination to doubt the sincerity of any one of his moods.

She had left him on the point of going to his room to play for Tommy, and knew that her brother would probably unfold to him during the afternoon his plan of becoming a violinist.

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