AS so often happens after hours or days of crises, and even of quarrel, things went better for a while after Laura\'s return to The Chase.

True, life was now, even more than before, dull, sad, and difficult. She missed Oliver Tropenell\'s constant companionship and stimulating talk, more than she was willing to acknowledge even to her innermost self. And yet, when Godfrey spoke of the other man\'s absence from Freshley with regret, his words jarred on her, and made her feel vaguely ashamed. Yet surely, surely she had nothing to reproach herself with in the matter of Oliver Tropenell? She would so gladly have kept him as Godfrey\'s friend as well as her own.

They had made it up, those two ill-matched people—made it up, that is, after a fashion. They were now much where they had been six months ago, just before Oliver Tropenell with his strong, masterful personality had come into their joint lives.

And Godfrey? Godfrey Pavely was happier, more complacent than usual, during those late autumn days. He also was ashamed—though not unreasonably so—of the absurd importance he had attached to those two vulgar anonymous letters! He was sorry now that he had spoken of the matter to Oliver Tropenell, for that odd, rather awkward talk of theirs on the matter had been perhaps a contributory cause of the other [Pg 161] man\'s sudden departure. If Oliver came home for Christmas, he, Godfrey, would "make it all right."

The banker had yet another reason for feeling life pleasanter than usual just now. He was engaged in a rather big bit of financial business of a kind his soul loved, for it was secret, immediately profitable, and with a gambling risk attached to it. The only person to whom he had said a word concerning the affair was Katty Winslow, and even to her, for he was a very prudent man, he had been quite vague.

With Katty he was becoming daily more intimate. Laura\'s cold aloofness made him seek, instinctively, a kinder, warmer, and yes, occasionally, a tenderer feminine presence. For the first time, lately, Godfrey had begun to tell himself that Katty would have made an almost perfect wife.... And Katty could have told you almost the exact moment when that thought had first flashed upon Godfrey Pavely\'s brain. But she also knew that so far he was content, most irritatingly content, with the status quo. Not so she——And one evening Katty tried an experiment which was on the whole remarkably successful, though its effects were strangely different from what she had expected.

While dining alone with Godfrey and Laura at The Chase, she startled her host and hostess by throwing out a careless word as to the possibility of her leaving Rosedean—of letting the house furnished, for a year....

Laura was astonished to see how much this casual remark of Katty\'s upset Godfrey. He uttered an exclamation of deep surprise and annoyance, and his wife told herself bitterly how strange it was that Godfrey, feeling so strongly about Katty, should not understand [Pg 162] how she, Laura, felt about Gillie. After all, Gillie was her own brother, and Katty was not Godfrey\'s sister—only an old playmate and friend!

Godfrey was, in very truth, much more than upset at those few careless words of his old friend—playmate, in the sense that Laura meant, she had never been. So disturbed and taken aback indeed that he lay awake much of that night.

The next morning he broke his walk into Pewsbury by going into Rosedean, this being the very first time he had ever done such a thing.

He was kept waiting a few moments—as a matter of fact only a very few moments—in the familiar little drawing-room, before Katty, wearing a charming, pale blue dressing-gown, edged with swansdown, joined him.

As was her way, she began speaking at once. "Why, what\'s the matter?" she exclaimed. "Has anything gone wrong, Godfrey?"

He answered irritably, "No, not that I know of. But I\'ve something to say to you." He pulled out his big, old-fashioned gold repeater. "It\'s twenty to ten—I thought I\'d find you down!"

"I always breakfast upstairs in my own room. But I didn\'t keep you waiting long——"

She was still a little breathless, for she had come down very quickly.

And then he began, with no preamble: "I want to know if you really meant what you said last night about letting this house furnished for a year? I\'m by no means sure if the terms of your lease allow for your doing that; I shall have to look into it after I [Pg 163] get to the Bank. Still, I thought I\'d better come and see you first."

Katty grew very pink. "Oh, Godfrey!" she exclaimed. "Surely you wouldn\'t be so unkind——?"

There came over her pretty face that curious, obstinate look which he had already seen there often enough to dread. Also she made him feel ashamed of himself. But how attractive she looked—how fresh and dainty—like a newly opened rose! Katty had twisted up her hair anyhow, but that only made her look younger, and more natural.

"Let\'s come out into the garden," she said coaxingly. "Surely you can stay for a few minutes? This is the very first time you\'ve ever been to see me in the morning! Why not telephone through and say you\'ve been delayed,—that you can\'t be at the Bank till eleven?" She was edging him as she spoke towards the corner where, behind a screen, there stood the telephone instrument.

As if compelled to obey, he took up the receiver, and uttered the familiar words, "Pewsbury 4." And at once there came an answer.

"Is that you, Privet? What a comfort it is to know that I can always rely on your being there, whoever else isn\'t! This is only to say that I have been delayed, and that I don\'t expect to be at the Bank till eleven."

Then came the calming, comforting answer, "Very good. That\'ll be all right, sir. There\'s nothing much doing this morning, from what I could make out when I was looking over your letters just now."

So Godfrey Pavely, feeling rather as if he was being driven along by a pleasant fate, hung the receiver [Pg 164] up, and followed the blue-garbed figure out of doors, into a little pleasance now filled with exquisite autumnal colouring, and pungent, searching scents.

In the furthest corner of the walled garden, which was so much older than the house itself, was a tiny lawn surrounded by high hedges. There they could talk without any fear of being overlooked or overheard; and, before her visitor could stop her, Katty had dragged two cane-seated easy chairs out of her little summer-house.

They both sat down, but this time Katty warily remained silent. She was waiting for her companion to begin.

"You weren\'t serious, were you?" he said at last, and she felt the underlying pain and surprise in his voice. "You don\'t really mean that you want to go away, Katty? Where would you go to? What would you do? Have the Standens asked you to go abroad again—not for a whole year, surely?"

"No," she said slowly, "not the Standens. If you must know, I\'ve been offered a furnished cottage rent-free by those friends of mine, the Haworths, who live near York. The truth is, I can\'t afford to keep up Rosedean! I hate saying this to you, but it\'s the truth."

"If you didn\'t go away so much——" he began irritably.

But she cut across him sharply, "After all, I\'ve a right to go away if I like! But it isn\'t that, Godfrey. I\'ve gone into it all—really I have! Even if I never left Rosedean I should still be too poor to go on living here comfortably."

"How much too poor?" he asked.

[Pg 165] Katty drew a long breath. In a sense she was speaking at random, but no one would have known it from the tone in which she answered: "About a hundred a year—a little less, a little more."

And then Godfrey Pavely said something which very much surprised Katty. "About that thousand pounds which was left to you the other day," he said hesitatingly.

"Well? That\'ll only bring in t............