A WEEK later Jean sat at the foot of the stairs and surveyed with faint amusement the motley collection of trunks and suit-cases which thronged the hall.

She was still looking pale and worn, strung up to face her self-imposed exile from the country which now held everything that was dear to her, but no enormity of sorrow, would ever blind Jean for long to the whimsical aspect that attends so many of the little things of daily life.

“What a lot of useless lumber we women carry about with us wherever we go!” she commented. “Five—six—seven packages to supply the needs of two solitary females—and Heaven only knows how many brown paper parcels will be required at the last moment for all the things we shall find we have forgotten when the time actually comes to start.” Claire, standing on the flight of stairs above and viewing the assemblage in the hall from over the top of the banister rail, giggled helplessly.

“Yes, they do look a lot,” she admitted. “However”—hopefully—“there’ll be plenty of room for them all when we actually get to Beirnfels.”

“Oh, plenty,” agreed Jean. “But we’ve got to convey them half across Europe first—two lone women and one miserable maid who will probably combine train-sickness and home-sickness to an extent that will totally incapacitate her for the performance of her duties.”

At this moment the front-door bell clanged violently through the house, as though pulled by someone in a tremendous hurry. Claire hastily withdrew her head from over the banister rail and disappeared upstairs, while Jean relinquished the accommodation offered by the bottommost step and sought refuge in the nearest of the sitting-rooms, closing the door stealthily behind her.

A moment later Tucker, who had caught sight of her hurriedly retreating figure, reopened it and announced imperturbably:

“Mr. Burke.”

Jean greeted him with surprise, but without any feeling of embarrassment. So much had happened since the day she had eluded him on the Moor, events of such intimate and tragic import had swept her path, that the unexpected meeting failed to rouse any feeling either of anger or dismay. Burke, and everything connected with him, belonged to another period of her existence altogether—to that glorious care-free time when it had seemed as though life were a deep, inexhaustible well bubbling over with wonderful possibilities. Burke was merely a ghost—a revenant from that far distant epoch.

“I’m in time, then?” he said, when he had shaken hands. “In time? In time for what?”

“In time to see you before you go.”

“Oh, yes.” Jean spoke lightly. “You’re in time for that. But who told you I was going away? I didn’t know you were in England, even.”

“I came back a fortnight ago—to London. Judith wired me from home that you were leaving Coombe Eavie.”

“I don’t see the necessity for her wiring you,” remarked Jean a little coldly. “There was no need for you to see me.”

“There was—every need.”

She glanced at him keenly, detecting a new note in his voice, an unexpected gravity and restraint.

“Every need,” he repeated. He paused, then went on quickly, with a nervousness that was foreign to him. “Jean, I know everything that has happened—that your engagement to Tormarin is at an end—and I have come to ask you if you will be my wife. No—hear me out!”—as she would have interrupted him. “I’m not asking you now as—as I did before. If you will marry me, I swear I will ask for nothing that you are not willing to give. I’m making no demands. I’ve learned now”—with a faint weary smile—“that you cannot force love. It can only be given. And I want nothing but just the right to take care of you, to shield you—to keep the sharp corners of life away from you.” Then, as he read her incredulous face, he went on gravely: “If I had w............