matter," she was saying—"what is it? Is your indigestion all wrong?"

My eyes half opened. My lips half smiled.

"My indigestion is never right," said Cruikshank. "Even my digestion is not what I could wish it at times."

"Well—you know what I mean," said she. "Is it bad?"

"No."

"Then what's the matter? You're depressed?"

I began to feel the sleep clearing from my eyes. I had remembered that sudden glimpse of Cruikshank between the curtains only a few nights before. Another moment, I should have been sitting up and calling out to them that I was within hearing; but sleep was there still in every muscle of my body.

"P'r'aps I am depressed," said Cruikshank.

"What about?"

"You, my dear."

There was such a caress in his voice that I am sure he must have taken her hand or laid his own upon her shoulder as he said it.

"Me? I'm all right," said Bellwattle. "Why should you be depressed about me?"

"Because I imagine you're not happy. Of course I may be all wrong. I may be making a consummate fool of myself, but it's been growing in my mind every day that—that—"

"That what—?" said Bellwattle, and I was just preparing to sneeze or do something in the conventional order of things that they might hear me.

"That you're getting fond of Bellairs," replied Cruikshank.

There followed a space of silence. I do not know how long it could have been. It seemed unbearably drawn out to me, and then, Bellwattle laughed a low, soft, crooning sort of laugh—such as a mother gives to its baby.

"You dear, silly old fool," said she.

"Ah, but don't turn it off like that," he replied. "I haven't thought so for nothing. You go out a lot together alone and I know how romantic those cliffs are. He's a good fellow too—a sterling fellow. Don't imagine I think he has been 

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