you were not coming."

Helen left apologies and explanations to Nathalie, and turned to answer an inquiry from Farr in regard to Jean.

"I am sorry to say she is deep in a book," she said, looking up at him with a smile, "and we could not persuade her to leave it. However, she promised to follow us shortly."

"And does Miss Jean always keep her promises?" Farr asked lightly. 79

79

"I think she does," Helen rejoined, meeting his eyes for an instant.

"Come, Helen. Start some of the good old hymns."

At Mollie's suggestion Helen's clear soprano took up the refrain of "Lead, kindly light," and the others joined in heartily. From long practice their voices blended beautifully.

They had been singing for nearly an hour when Farr rose quietly to his feet.

"Miss Lawrence," he said, bending over her chair, "don't you think Miss Jean should be brought to a realizing sense of her delinquencies and coerced into making some reparation?"

"Indeed, I do," she assented with a frank laugh, "but what are we going to do about it?"

"I don't think my desertion would be noticed if I should go in search of her," Farr suggested, lowering his voice. "Do you?"

Helen gave him a swift glance of amusement.

"'I would not hear thine enemy say so.' But go and see what your persuasive powers can do."

"You have put me on my mettle now," he rejoined, as he stepped over the low railing and dropped noiselessly on to the grass below, and it was with a sense of amusement that he recognized his own impatience and eagerness as he set out for the manor.

He paused to light a cigarette, then strode on over the soft turf, revolving many and varied thoughts in his mind. The brightness died out of his eyes, and the lines of the mouth were stern and compressed, 80 for to-night the past with its perplexities and disappointments rose vividly before him. In his thirty years of life fortune had dealt him some severe blows and had set him adrift with more 

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