It was, in fact, Alfred Rayner's perfectly chiselled features which, after a very brief wooing, had been the passport to the heart of the young daughter of Pinkthorpe Rectory. Hester and he had met at a large house-party--the girl's first appearance in society. She had lately left school, and was becoming pleasantly conscious that she was a free agent, no longer told to do this and that, but tacitly challenged to exercise personal choice. She was not exactly in love with the young barrister, but being on the verge of her life's awakening, a word, a look, a touch, was enough to rouse her. And when these forces were skilfully applied by the wooer, aided by a good-natured hostess with the alleged feminine love of match-making, the result may be supposed. Though with the girl herself, the matter was no further advanced, even in her own account to her mother, than was consistent with saying frankly that she admired and liked the young stranger who had come into her simple days. Sweet home security had wrapped her all her young life, and before her now stretched the glamour of a happiness to come. Might it not be sweeter than any she had ever known, whispered imaginings, indefinite but luring as the balmy air of those June days in which she gave her "promise true" to go with this man. That it was to go "over the hills and far away" added only to the fascination of the prospect. Even the haste of the wooing had its charm for the young girl; for Alfred Rayner asked nothing less of the anxious parents than that their precious daughter should be given to him at once. His short furlough being almost expired, his urgent request was that they should be married without delay and make their honeymoon on their voyage to India. For two years Mr. Alfred Rayner had been practising as a barrister in Madras, and was able to expatiate in glowing words on the many-sided charm of life for the dominant race in the tropical land. His young wife had found as yet that those descriptions were, if anything, under the mark. During those early days she used playfully to tax her gratified husband that he had not conveyed to her half the charm of the bright Eastern land whose spell had hitherto been unbroken. But as she stood now in that darkened room having told her joyful news, the shaft of light which fell on his face revealed to her a little dark cloud in her heaven of blue. It was the first time she had felt that she and Alfred were not entirely in unison. Nor was the recollection quite covered when after breakfast she watched him going down the broad, white, sunlit flight of steps from the verandah to enter his office-bandy, though he called to her, "I'll see if the _Bokhara_ is in and send you word."