KATTY WINSLOW stood by her open gate. She had wandered out there feeling restless and excited, though she hardly knew why. During the last fortnight she had spent many lonely hours, more lonely hours than usual, for Godfrey Pavely came much less often to see her than he had done in the old, easygoing days.

And yet, though restless, Katty was on the whole satisfied. She thought that things were going very much as she wished them to go. It was of course annoying to know so little, but she was able to guess a good deal, and she felt quite sure that the leaven was working.

But the suspense and the uncertainty had got on her nerves, and she had made up her mind to leave Rosedean perhaps for as long as a fortnight. Two days ago she had written to various friends who were always glad to see her. That was why, as she stood at the gate, she was able to tell herself that she was waiting for the postman.

She thought it very probable that Godfrey Pavely would be walking past her house about this time. A couple of days ago he had come in for about half an hour, but he had been dull and ill at ease, his mind evidently full of something he was unwilling or ashamed to tell. And she had watched him with an amused, sympathetic curiosity, wondering how long his cautious reticence would endure. If she had put her mind to it, perhaps Katty could have made him speak of that which filled his sore heart, but she felt that the time was not yet ripe for words between herself and Godfrey. She was afraid of jarring him, of making him say something to her which both of them afterwards might regret. No, not any words of love to herself—of that she was not afraid—but some dogmatic pronouncement on divorce, and perchance on re-marriage.

And then, as she stood there, glancing up and down the lonely country road, she suddenly saw a man walking quickly towards her—not from Pewsbury, but from the opposite direction, which led only from The Chase.

Katty's bright brown eyes were very good eyes, and long before the stranger could see her she had, as it were, taken stock of him. Somehow his clothes were not English-looking, and he wore a kind of grey Homburg hat.

He was walking at a great pace, and as he came nearer, some vague feeling of curiosity made Katty step out of the gate, and look straight up the road towards him. All at once she made up her mind that he was American—a well-to-do and, according to his lights, a well-dressed American.

Now Katty Winslow looked very charming, as she stood out there, in her heather-mixture tweed skirt, and pale blue flannel blouse—charming, and also young. And the stranger—to her he seemed entirely a stranger—when he was quite close up to her, suddenly took off his hat and exclaimed, "Why, Miss Fenton! It is Miss Fenton, isn't it?"

He was now smiling broadly into her face, his bold, rather challenging eyes—the blue eyes which were the best feature of his face, and the only feature which recalled his beautiful sister—full of cordial admiration.

"You don't remember me?" he went on. "Well, that's quite natural, for of course you made a much deeper impression on me than I did on you!"

And then all at once it flashed across Katty who this pleasant, bright-eyed wayfarer must be. It must be, it could only be, Gilbert Baynton—the peccant Gillie!

"Mr. Baynton?" she said questioningly, and she also threw a great note of welcome and cordiality into her voice.

"Yes," he said. "Gilbert Baynton—very much at your service——?"

"—Mrs. Winslow," she said hurriedly. "I'm Mrs. Winslow now." She saw that the name conveyed nothing to him. "Do come in," she went on pleasantly, "if only for a moment, Mr. Baynton. Though it's early for tea, perhaps you'll stay and have a cup with me? I had no idea you were in England! I suppose you're staying with Laura, at The Chase?"

He shook his head, the smile faded from his face, and Katty, who was observant, saw that her question was ill-timed.

"It's delightful—seeing an old friend again, and I was feeling so bored—all by myself!"

As he followed her into the house, Gillie told himself that this was distinctly amusing—quite good fun! It would take the horrible taste of his interview with that—that brute—out of his mouth.

He looked round the little hall with quick interest and curiosity. There was no sign of a man about, only a lady's slender walking-stick and a bright red parasol, in the umbrella-stand. Was pretty little Katty a widow? Somehow she did not look like a widow!

She opened a door which gave out of the hall on the left, and called out, "Harber? I should like tea in about five minutes."

Then she shut the door, and led the way down the little hall, and through into her sitting-room.

Gillie again glanced about him with eager appreciation. This was the sort of room he liked—cosy, comfortable, bright and smiling like its attractive mistress.

"Sit down," she exclaimed, "and tell me everything that's happened to you since we last met! Why, it must be, let me see, quite twelve years ago?"

She took up a china box: "Have a cigarette—I'll have one too."

He waved the box aside, took out his own case, and held it out to her. "I think you'll like these," he said. Then he struck a match, and as their fingers touched, the lighting of her cigarette took quite a little while.

"This is jolly!" He sank back into one of Katty's well-cushioned easy chairs. "You've the prettiest room I've been in since I came to England, Mrs. Winslow."

"Oh, then you haven't been into Laura's boudoir?"

"Yes, I've just come from there." Again his face altered as he spoke, and this time there came a look of frowning anger over it. Then, almost as if he read the unspoken question in her mind, he said slowly, "Look here, Mrs. Winslow, as you seem to know my sister so well, I may as well tell you the truth. I've just been ordered out of her house by my brother-in-law, Godfrey Pavely. I suppose you know that he and I had a row years ago?" He was looking at her rather hard as he spoke, and she nodded her head.

"Yes," she said frankly, "I do know that, though I don't know what it was about."

He breathed a little more freely. "It was about money," he said bitterly. "Just what one would expect it to be with a man like Godfrey. He was furious because I got Laura to lend me some money. It was to pay a debt of honour, for I was a gambler in those days. But I'm a good boy now!"

"Yes," she said, and smiled. "I know you are! You're Oliver Tropenell's partner, aren't you, Mr. Baynton? He talks awfully nicely of you."

Gillie—his face was fair, his skin very clear, almost like a girl's—looked pleased. "Good old Tropenell!" he exclaimed. "Yes, he and I are tremendous pals. He's been the best friend to me man ever had."

"I am so sorry for Laura," said Katty gently.

She was playing with the edge of a piece of Italian embroidery which covered a small table close to her elbow, and she was thinking—hard.

At that moment the drawing-room door opened, and the tea appeared. While the table was being drawn up in front of her, the tray placed on to it, and a taper put to the spirit lamp, Katty's mind went on working busily. And by the time the maid was leaving the room, she had come to a decision. Even to her it was a momentous decision—how momentous to others she was destined never to know.

Again she said slowly, impressively, "Yes, Mr. Baynton, I am sorry indeed for poor Laura."

"I'm sorry too. Not that it much matters! I didn't want to stay at The Chase. I always thought it a gloomy place in the old days, when I was a child—I mean when it still belonged to Mrs. Tropenell's people. Of course I shall see Laura again—Godfrey can't prevent that! In fact he admitted that he couldn't."

There was a little pause. And then Katty, her eyes bent downwards, said, "I didn't quite mean that, Mr. Baynton. Of course I'm very sorry about your new row with Mr. Pavely, for it must be so hateful to Laura to feel she can't have her own brother in her own house. But—well——" She threw her head back, and gazed straight across at him. "Can you keep a secret?" she asked.

"Yes, of course I can!" He looked at her amused.

"I want you to keep what I'm going to say absolutely to yourself. I don't want you ever to hint a word of it to Laura—still less to Oliver Tropenell."

"Of course I won't!" He looked at her with growing curiosity. What was it she was going to tell him?

"I wonder if I ought to tell you," she murmured.

He laughed outright. "Well, I can't make you tell me!"

She felt piqued at his indifference. "Yes, I will tell you, though it isn't my secret!" she exclaimed. "But I feel that you ought to know it—being Laura's brother. Laura," her voice dropped, she spoke in a very low voice, "Laura is in love with Oliver Tropenell, Mr. Baynton. And Oliver is in love with Laura—a thousand times more in love with her than she is in love with him!"

She gave him a swift glance across the tea-table. Yes! Her shot had told indeed. He looked extraordinarily moved and excited. So excited that he got up from his chair.

"Good God!" he exclaimed incredulously. "Laura?" And then, "Tropenell? Are you sure of this, Mrs. Winslow?"

"Yes," she answered in a quiet, composed voice that carried conviction. "I am quite sure. They are both very, very unhappy, for they are good, high-minded people. They wouldn't do anything wrong for the world."

As he looked at her a little oddly, and with a queer little smile all over his face, she exclaimed, "I know Laura wouldn't." And he nodded, a little ashamed of that queer little smile.

Gilbert Baynton's face stiffened into deep gravity. His eyes were shining, and he was staring down at the little table, his half-finished cup of tea forgotten.

He sat down again. "Has Laura told you this?" he asked abruptly. "Are you her confidante?"

Katty hesitated. "No," she said at last. "I don't suppose Laura has spoken of the matter to any living soul. But if you promise absolutely not to give me away—I can tell you how you can assure yourself of the truth. Ask Mrs. Tropenell. She knows. I won't say any more."

"And Pavely?" he asked. "What part does my fine brother-in-law play? Does proper Godfrey know? Is priggish Godfrey jealous?"

She answered slowly: "I think that Mr. Pavely suspects. He and Oliver Tropenell were great friends till quite lately. But there's a coldness now. I don't know what happened. But something happened."

"I see now why Tropenell has stayed here so long. I thought it must be a woman! I thought some prudish, dull, English girl had got hold of him——" He waited a moment.

"Well, I'm eternally grateful to you, Mrs. Winslow, for giving me this hint! You see, I'm very fond of Tropenell. It's a peculiar kind of feeling—there's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for him. Good God! I only wish that he and Laura——"

He was going to say "would have the pluck to bolt together!" but Katty supplied a very different ending to his sentence.

"Ah," she exclaimed, "I only wish that Laura and Oliver could marry. They're made for one another. You can't see them together without seeing that!" She went on feelingly, "Laura was dreadfully unhappy with Godfrey Pavely even before Oliver Tropenell came into her life. She and Mr. Pavely are quite unsuited to one another."

There was a queer bitterness in her voice.

And then Gillie Baynton suddenly remembered—remembered the flood of gossip there had been at one time concerning those two—pretty Katty Fenton, as she had been then, and Godfrey Pavely, the man who later became his own brother-in-law.

He gave her a queer, shrewd glance, and Mrs. Winslow went on, rather quickly and breathlessly,

"You mustn't think that I dislike Godfrey Pavely! He's been very good to me—as good as Laura. I'm what they call an innocent divorcÉe, Mr. Baynton, and they both helped me through the trouble. It was pretty bad at the time, I can tell you. But of course I can't help seeing—no one could help seeing—that Godfrey and Laura aren't suited to one another, and that they would each be much, much happier apart."

At the back of her clever, astute mind was the knowledge that it was quite on the cards that Oliver, or Oliver's mother, would say something to Gilbert Baynton concerning herself and her intimacy with Godfrey Pavely. She must guard against that, and guard against it now.

So she went on, pensively, "I don't know, to tell you the truth, for which of them I'm the more sorry—Laura, Godfrey, or Oliver! They're all three awfully to be pitied. Of course, if they lived in America it would be quite simple; Laura and Godfrey would be divorced by mutual consent, and then Laura would be able to be happy with Mr. Tropenell."

"And is nothing of that sort possible here?" asked Gillie Baynton curiously. "This old England has stood still!"

Katty shook her head regretfully. "No, there's nothing of the sort possible here. Of course there are ways and means——"

The other fixed his eyes on her. "Yes?" he said interrogatively.

"I fear that they are not ways and means that Godfrey or Laura would ever lend themselves to."

"Then there's no cutting the Gordian knot?"

But that wasn't quite what Katty meant to imply. "I don't know," she said hesitatingly. "Godfrey would do almost anything to avoid any kind of scandal. But then you see one comes up against Laura——"

He nodded quickly. "Yes, I quite understand that Laura would never do anything she thought wrong—queer, isn't it?"

Gilbert Baynton stayed on at Rosedean for quite another half-hour, but nothing more was said on the subject which was filling his mind and that of his hostess. They walked about the pretty, miniature garden, talking in a desultory way over old times, and about some of the people they had both known years ago.

And then, at last, she took him to the gate. They looked at one another like two augurs, and he said under his breath, "Well, it's a pretty kettle of fish I've come home to, eh? I thought there was some sort of mystery. I'm very much obliged to you for having put me on the track to solve the riddle."

"Ah," she said, "but the riddle isn't solved yet, Mr. Baynton, is it?"

He answered, gravely for him, "No, those sorts of riddles are very hard to solve." He hesitated, then exclaimed in a meaning tone, "Still, they are solved sometimes, Mrs. Winslow."

It was late the same night, a warm, St. Martin's summer night, and Mrs. Tropenell, sitting alone after dinner, made an excuse of a telephone message to join her son and Gillie Baynton out of doors.

After Baynton's return from The Chase the two men had gone off for a long walk together over the downs, and they had come home so late that dinner had had to be put off for half an hour. Instead of joining her later, they had gone out again, but this time only into the garden.

Noiselessly she moved across the grass, and then, just as she was going to step under the still leaf-draped pergola, she heard her son's voice—a voice so charged with emotion and pain that, mastered by her anxiety, she stopped just behind one of the brick arches, and listened.

"You'll oblige me, Baynton, by keeping your sister's name out of this."

"Oh, very well! I thought you'd be glad to know what that woman said to me—I mean Mrs. Winslow."

"I'm not glad. I'm sorry. Mrs. Winslow is mistaken."

The short sentence came out with laboured breath as if with difficulty, and the one who overheard them, the anguished eavesdropper, felt her heart stirred with bitter impotence.

How Oliver cared—how much Oliver cared!

"Why are you so sure of that?" Again she heard Baynton's full, caressing voice. "Laura's a very reserved woman! I'd rather believe her best friend—apparently Katty is her best friend—about such a thing as this. You've admitted that you love her."

And as the other made no answer, Gillie went on, speaking in a very low voice, but with every word clearly audible from the place where Mrs. Tropenell stood listening: "Of course I won't mention Laura—as it upsets you so much! But after all, my hatred for Pavely and my love for my sister are the two strongest things in my life. Surely you know that well enough, Tropenell? I can't bar Laura out!"

And then came the answer, muttered between the speaker's teeth: "I understand that, Baynton."

"I'm sorry I repeated Mrs. Winslow's tale. But of course it did impress me—it did influence me. I'd like to believe it, Tropenell."

The secret listener was surprised at the feeling which Gillie's vibrant voice betrayed.

Oliver muttered something—was it, "I'd give my soul to know it true"?

Then, in a lighter tone, Gillie exclaimed, "As to that other matter, I'd rather keep you out of the business altogether if I could! But I can't—quite."

What was it that Oliver answered then? The two men were now walking slowly away towards the further end of the pergola. Mrs. Tropenell strained her ears to hear her son's answer:

"I don't want to keep out of it." Was that what he said, in a very low, tense voice?

Gilbert Baynton was speaking again: "It is my idea, my scheme, and I mean to carry it through! I shan't want much help—only quite a little help from you."

And then she heard her son's voice again, and he was speaking more naturally this time. "Of course we'll go shares, Gillie! What d'you take me for? Am I to have all the profit, and you all the risk?"

Mrs. Tropenell breathed more freely. They were off from Laura now, and on some business affair. She heard Gillie Baynton laugh aloud. "I'm quite looking forward to it—but it will be a longish job!"

Oliver answered, "I'm not looking forward to it. You feel quite sure about this thing, Baynton? There's time to draw back—now."

"Sure? Of course I'm sure!" There was triumph, a challenge to fate, in the other's tone. "I've always liked playing for high stakes—you know that, eh?"

"Ay, I know that——"

"And I've never looked back. I've never regretted anything I've done in my life——" there was a ring of boastful assurance in Gilbert Baynton's tone.

"I can't say that of myself—I wish I could."

"You? Why, you've a milk-white record, compared to mine!"

Mrs. Tropenell moved away swiftly over the grass, till she stood at the end of the dark, arched walk. Then, "Oliver!" she called out, "there's a message from Lord St. Amant. He wants to know if you can go over to the Abbey next week, from Saturday till Tuesday. He says there'll be some shooting. I told him you'd ring up before going to bed—I hope that was right."

"Yes, mother. Of course I'll ring up. I'll go in and do it now, if you like. Gillie and I have been having a long business talk."

And then she heard Gilbert Baynton: "I'll stay out here a bit longer, Mrs. Tropenell. I'm getting quite used to the cold and damp of the old country. I don't mind it as much as I did a week ago."

Mother and son walked across the lawn to the house.

When they were indoors, he broke silence first: "Gillie had a bad row with Pavely this afternoon. I don't think it's any use his staying on here. Pavely won't allow Laura to see him again at The Chase."

Mrs. Tropenell uttered an exclamation of dismay.

"Yes, it's unfortunate, I admit. And I don't think it was Gillie's fault! He's described the scene to me in great detail. He was quite willing to go as far as I think he could be expected to go in the way of apology and contrition. But Pavely simply didn't give him a chance. Pavely's a narrow-minded brute, mother."

"Is Gillie very upset? Is he much disappointed?" she asked in a low voice.

"Yes, I think Gillie is upset—more upset than I should have expected him to be! He's disappointed, too, at not having seen little Alice. He's really fond of children, and, as he truly says, Alice is bound to be his heiress—unless of course he should marry, which is very unlikely."

Oliver was speaking in a preoccupied, absent voice, as if he was hardly thinking of what he was saying. "We're thinking, he and I, of going to the Continent next week. We've got business to do in Paris—rather important business, too. Of course I'll try and come back here before leaving for Mexico."

Mrs. Tropenell felt as if the walls of the room were falling about her. Oliver had always spoken of late as if he meant to stay on in England till after Christmas.

"How long d'you expect to be in France?"

"I can't tell yet, mother. I might be there a fortnight, or I might be there six weeks—it all depends on the business we're going to do. No dates are settled yet."

He waited a few moments, then said slowly, "I've been wondering whether you would mind going up with Laura to London for a few days? Somehow I think Pavely is more likely to let her go if you offer to go too."

There swept over her a feeling of recoil, but she let her son see nothing of that. "Very well," she said quietly. "I quite understand—I'll do my best. I agree that Laura ought to see her brother again. And what are you thinking of doing, my dear?"

"Oh, I thought of going up to town, too." He spoke with a detached air. "You and I could stay in that nice little hotel where we stayed years ago, mother. Of course I'm only thinking of a few days in town, before Gillie and I go off to Paris."

As they came through into the house, she was startled by the expression on her son's face. He looked as if he had had a shock; he was very pale, it was as if all the healthy colour had been drained out of his tan cheeks.

"Oliver?" she exclaimed. "Do you feel ill, my darling? When you came in before dinner you looked as if you had caught a chill."

"It was rather cold on the downs, but I feel very much as usual, thank you, mother. A talk with Gillie always tires me. I think he's got a rather——" he hesitated for a word, then found it—"obstreperous vitality."