To Jean, watching them with dilating eyes, that apparently meaningless incident seemed fraught with significance. All the haunting doubts and fears, that not twelve hours ago she had scorned as morbid fancies, returned upon her with redoubled force. Love, which makes us strangely blind, makes us also strangely alert; and Jean's eyes had seen the change in Farr's face, and as he spoke those few conventional words, her quick ears had detected an unnatural ring in his voice. Miss Stuart had called herself an old friend, and yet Farr had never spoken of her. Jean searched her memory to see if it were possible that she had never mentioned Miss Stuart's name to him, and, as she thus pondered, a chance sentence of Nathalie's reached her: "You go through the shrubbery----" She heard no more. In an instant the scene was clear before her--the long stretch of lawn beyond the shrubbery, bright in the silver moonlight, the sound of voices from the parsonage, breaking softly upon the evening stillness, through which Farr and she walked slowly side by side. Then she had spoken of Miss Stuart, and he had certainly disclaimed any acquaintance with her. Her heart grew cold as her first doubt of her lover found lodgment there. As if in consummation of her thoughts, she looked up to see Farr offer Miss Stuart his arm. With a sense of foreboding she followed them slowly into the dining room, smiling a little drearily as she remembered with what eagerness she had anticipated this dinner. Farr's place at table was between Miss Stuart and Jean, and as they took their seats, he spoke to the latter in a carefully lowered tone: "You can't imagine how delightful it is to be here again. I was absolutely homesick for the manor while I was away." "Indeed? How unhappy you must have been." "I was," he replied gravely, observing for the first time the girl's air of disdain, and wondering at the cause thereof, "and I shall have a new cause for sorrow if you look at me as you are now doing." Jean's levity was somewhat forced as she replied: "I am very sorry you are not pleased. I do not find it easy to change my expression." "No?" He bent a very direct and earnest gaze upon her. "Why, Miss Jean," he said softly, "I thought we were friends when I went away; and only to-night you seemed glad at my return." The last spark of resentment died out of Jean's heart. Her distrust of him seemed suddenly both groundless and foolish. Ashamed and contrite, she was about to speak, when Miss Stuart's suave voice broke in upon them: "Mr. Farr, have you heard anything of the Saunders since you left Washington?"