That same morning, but a good deal later, Blanche Farrow woke with a start to find Pegler standing at her bedside with just one letter in her hand.

Pegler was smiling. It was not a real smile, but just a general softening of her plain, severe face.

Pegler knew that her lady had been rather "put out" at not having received her usual Christmas letter from Mr. Mark Gifford. She had spoken of it twice to Pegler, once lightly, on December 27, and then again, in a rather upset way, on the 29th. After that she had pretended to forget all about it. But Pegler felt sure Miss Farrow did remember—often. And now here was the letter—a much fatter letter than usual, too.

Pegler, of course, said nothing. It was not her place to know the hand-writing of any of the gentlemen who wrote to her mistress.

Miss Farrow took the letter, and there came a faint, a very faint, flush over her face. She said: "I hope Miss Bubbles has had a good night. Have you been in to her yet, Pegler?"

"Yes, ma'am. She looks rather excited-like. But as you know, ma'am, that's a good sign with her."

"Yes, I think it is, Pegler."

Pegler slipped noiselessly away, and then Blanche opened the envelope containing Mark Gifford's long-delayed Christmas letter.

Blanche Farrow sighed and smiled, as she deliberately read the long letter through twice. Somehow it warmed her heart; and yet would she ever be able to give up the life which in many ways suited her so well? If she married Mark—dear, kind, generous-hearted Mark—various friendships which, even if they did not mean so much to her as they appeared to do, yet meant a good deal in her present lonely life, would certainly have to be given up. To take but one instance. It had almost been an instinct with her to keep Lionel Varick and Mark Gifford apart. In the old days she had been disagreeably aware of how absolutely Gifford had always disapproved of Varick, and of Varick's various ways of trying, often successfully, to raise the wind. Of course, everything was now different with regard to this particular friend. Varick had become—by what anyone not a hypocrite must admit had been a fortunate circumstance—a respectable member of society; but, even so, she knew, deep in her heart, that he and the man whose letter she held in her hand would never like one another.

And yet she was tired—so tired!--of the sort of life she led, year in and year out. Her nerves were no longer what they had once been. For instance, the strange series of happenings that had just taken place here, at Wyndfell Hall, had thoroughly upset her; and as for the horrible thing that had occurred yesterday, she hadn't been able to sleep all night for thinking of it. Nothing that had ever happened in her now long life had had quite the effect on Blanche Farrow that Bubbles' accident had had. She had realized, suddenly, how fond she was of the girl—how strong in all of us is the call of the blood! As she had stood watching Dr. Panton's untiring efforts to restore the circulation of the apparently drowned girl there had gone up from Blanche's heart a wild, instinctive prayer to the God in whom she did not believe, to spare the child.

Perhaps just because she had not broken down before, she felt the more now all that had happened in the way of the strange, the sinister, and the untoward during the last fortnight. And all at once, after reading yet again right through the quiet, measured letter of her old friend and constant lover, Blanche Farrow suddenly burst into a passion of tears.

And then it struck her as funny, as even absurd, that she should cry like this! She hadn't cried for years and years—in fact, she could hardly remember the day when she had last cried.

She jumped out of bed and put on her dressing-gown, for it was very cold, and then she went and gazed at her reflection in the one looking-glass in the room. It was a beautiful old Jacobean mirror fixed over the dressing-table.

Heavens! What a fright she looked! Do tears always have that disfiguring effect on a woman? This must be a lesson to her. She dabbed her eyes with a wet handkerchief, and then she went over to the writing-table and sat down.

For the first time in her life Blanche Farrow wrote Mark Gifford a really grateful, sincere letter. She said, truly, how touched she was by his long devotion and by all his goodness to her. She admitted, humbly, that she wished she were worthy of it all. But she finally added that she feared she could never find it in her heart and conscience to say that she would do what he wished. She had become too old, too set in her ways....

Yet it was with a heavy heart that she wrote her long letter in answer to his, and it took her a long time, for she often waited a few moments in between the sentences.

How strange was her relationship to this man of whom she saw so little, and yet with whom she felt on close, intangible terms of intimacy! His work tied him to London, and of late years she had not been much in London. He knew very little of her movements. Why, this very letter had been sent to her, care of her London club, the club which had its uses—principally—when she wanted to entertain Mark Gifford himself to lunch or dinner.

His letter had wandered to yet another address—an address she had left at the club weeks ago, the only address they had. From thence it had reached the last house where she had been staying before she had come to Wyndfell Hall. The wonderful thing was that the letter had reached her at all. But she was very glad it had come, if only at long last.

After her letter was finished, she suddenly felt that she must put in a word to account for the delay in her answer to what should have received an immediate reply. And so she added a postscript, which, unlike most women's postscripts, was of really very little importance—or so the writer thought.

This unimportant postscript ran:

Blanche hesitated, pen in hand. Of course, it was not necessary that she should mention the name of her host. She might rewrite the last page of her letter, and leave the postscript out. It was unfortunately true that Mark had taken a violent prejudice against the man he had befriended to such good purpose years and years ago. She had been still young then—young and, as she was quite willing to admit now, very foolish. In fact, she looked back to the Blanche Farrow of those days, as we are sometimes apt to look back at our younger selves, with amazement and disapproval, rather than sympathy. But there was a streak of valiant honesty in her nature. She let what had been written stand, only adding the words:

It was by Bubbles' special wish—nay, command, that her engagement to Bill Donnington was publicly announced that very morning, at breakfast, by her aunt. Everyone was much interested, and said the usual good-natured, rather silly, civil things; hence Blanche was glad Bill Donnington had breakfasted early, and so was not there.

Helen Brabazon was extremely excited and delighted at the news. "I suppose it happened yesterday morning!" she exclaimed. "For, of course, they haven't seen one another alone since then. If they were already engaged, what awful agony poor Mr. Donnington must have gone through while you were trying to bring her to life again?"

She turned to Panton, and he answered thoughtfully, "I could see he was most terribly upset. Don't you remember how he refused to go up to the house and change his wet clothes?"

Blanche couldn't help glancing furtively from behind the teapot and high silver urn at James Tapster. His phlegmatic face had become very red. Almost at once he had got up and gone over to the dresser, and there, taking a long time about it, he had cut himself some slices of ham. She noticed, with relief, that he came back with a huge plateful, which he proceeded to eat with apparent appetite.

"And when is the wedding to take place?" asked Helen.

"Almost at once," replied Blanche smiling. "Bubbles never does anything like anybody else! She's set her heart on going to town the very moment Dr. Panton allows her to get up. Then they're to be married without any fuss at all in one of the old City churches."

"What a splendid idea!" cried Helen. "That's just how I should like to be married."

"I, too," said Sir Lyon, in his pleasant voice. "To me there's always been something barbaric in the ordinary grand wedding."

But Blanche Farrow shook her head. "Perhaps because I'm so much older than all of you," she said good-humouredly, "I think there's a great deal to be said for an old-fashioned wedding: white dress (white satin for choice), orange blossoms, St. George's, Hanover Square, and all! I even like the crowd of people saying kind and unkind things in whispers to one another. I don't think I should feel myself married unless I went through all that—"

And then, at last, James Tapster said something. "Marriage is all rot!" he said, speaking, as was his unpleasant custom, with his mouth full. "There are very few happy married couples about."

"That may be your experience," said Varick, speaking for the first time since Blanche had told the great news. "I'm glad to say it isn't mine. I think marriage far the happiest state—for either a man or a woman."

He spoke with a good deal of feeling, and both Panton and Helen Brabazon felt very much touched. He had certainly made his marriage a success.

Meanwhile, Blanche suspected that Dr. Panton had just had a letter containing disturbing news. She saw him read it twice over. Then he put it carefully in a note-book he took out of his pocket. "I shall have to go to-morrow, a day earlier than I thought," he observed. "I've got an appointment in town on Thursday morning."

Then Mr. Tapster announced that he was going to-day, and though Varick seemed genuinely sorry, everyone else was secretly glad.

There are days in life which pass by without being distinguished by any outstanding happenings, and which yet remain in the mind as milestones on the road of life.

Such a day, at any rate to Blanche Farrow, was the day which saw the first disruption of Lionel Varick's Christmas house party. Though Mr. Tapster was the only guest actually to leave Wyndfell Hall, all the arrangements concerning the departures of the morrow had to be made. Miss Burnaby, Helen Brabazon, and Sir Lyon Dilsford were to travel together. Dr. Panton was going by a later train, as was also Bill Donnington. Blanche herself, with of course Bubbles, was leaving on the Saturday.

As the day went on Blanche realized that Varick much desired that Helen Brabazon should also stay on till Saturday. But she, Blanche, thought this desire unreasonable. Though she had come to like her, she found the good, thoughtful, conscientious, and yet simple-minded Helen "heavy in hand"; she told herself that if Helen stayed on, the entertaining of the girl would fall on her, especially if, as Dr. Panton insisted, Bubbles must not get up till Friday at dinner-time.

Looking back, Blanche Farrow told herself that that day had been full of curious premonitions. Yet it had opened, in a sense happily for her, with the coming of Mark Gifford's quaint, characteristic letter. Then had come the shock, and it had been a shock, of Bubbles' engagement, and of the girl's insistence on its being announced to the rest of the house party at once—at breakfast.

The only outstanding thing which happened, and it was indeed a small thing compared to the other two, was the departure of James Tapster. Blanche felt sorry for him—genuinely sorry. But she philosophically told herself that no amount of money, even had Bill Donnington never existed, could have made Bubbles even tolerably happy tied to such a man.

After Mr. Tapster had gone they all breathed the more freely. Yet Blanche somehow did not feel comfortable. What was wrong, for instance, with Lionel Varick? He looked ill at ease, as well as ill physically. Something seemed also to be weighing on Dr. Panton's mind. Even Sir Lyon Dilsford was unlike his pleasant easy self. But Blanche thought she knew what ailed him.

Her only sheet anchor of comfort during that long, dull afternoon and evening was the thought that Bubbles' life was set on the right lines at last ... and that Mark Gifford had not changed.