After a hurried toilet he went down to the dining-room. The first sound that struck his ear, as he entered, was the pop of a champagne cork and the voice of Hockmaster, who was sitting at the lower end, with his back to the door, next to Mme. Boccard. The waiter was in the act of filling his glass from a large bottle of champagne. The blaze of light after the darkness of the corridors dazzled Raine, and he paused for a second on the threshold, glancing up the table. He was greeted by two rows of welcoming faces turned towards him and a chorus of kind salutations. The old commandant stretched up his hand behind his chair and gave a vigorous handshake. Mme. Popea looked up at him, with a smile over her good-natured face, as he passed along. But he had eyes only for Katherine. A curious little spasm passed through him, as he met her glance. It seemed to contain a world of fears. She was looking pale and ill. Mme. Boccard, in her high-pitched voice, directed him to take the professor's place at the head of the table. He found himself thus between Felicia and Katherine. Felicia greeted him naturally. Katherine gave him a cold, trembling hand, and an almost furtive look. Evidently something had happened during his absence, of whose nature he was ignorant. She was no longer the same woman. Mere feminine shyness would not account for this suppressed agitation. The food on her plate had remained untouched. For a moment he lost sense of the scene round him. The universe consisted in this woman with the ashen face and quickly heaving bosom. He bent towards her,--“Are you ill?” he whispered, his emotion expressing itself by the first chance commonplace. “No,” she returned hurriedly, in the same tone. “A sudden faintness--my heart, perhaps. Don't notice me--for heaven's sake! I shall be better soon.” Question and answer passed too quickly to attract attention. Raine recovered his balance, and turned to Felicia. “My father seems to be getting on nicely, thanks to you,” he said kindly. “Ca, not to me. To you. Since your reply came to-day.” “I am always so nervous when he gets seedy. He is not strong, I have been full of direful imaginations all the afternoon.” Felicia sketched the history of the case, touched on the abandoned trip to Lucerne, condoled with Raine on the disappointment at not meeting his friends at Chamonix. She talked bravely, all the pride of her young-womanhood up in arms to help her. Perhaps she could convince him that he had made a mistake. She devoted to the task all her energies. Her modesty and intuitive tact saved her from over-acting. Her concentration, however, prevented her from realizing the silent agitation of Katherine. She attributed it to embarrassment at meeting Raine after his absence, and felt a little thrill of gratified vanity at the inversion of parts. It used to be Katherine who was outwardly at perfect ease and self-contained, and herself who was embarrassed and tongue-tied.