"And who," queried Grizel, with sudden energy, "is Katrine thinking of, when she sits smiling into space, and giving silly answers to obvious questions, and putting horrid sugar into my tea,--tell me that, if you can! It is your profession in life to study men and women, and analyse their thoughts. What do you make of the mystery of the woman upon your hearth?" Martin smiled superior. "There is none. She is thinking of the grocer, and determining to hurl another complaint at his head, because he will insist upon sending us sandy grit, instead of honest West Indian sugar, or of the butcher, whom she suspects of frozen meat, or--or of the Y.W., who has left smudges on the plates... Nothing more romantic, I assure you." "Blind bat of a man! that's all _you_ know. I'll take to novel-writing myself at this rate. If this is the insight and inner vision of `one of the most popular of our young writers' there's room for Grizel Dundas! I have not been in the house a week, but I know two things--_Some one_ is making love to Katrine, and--Katrine enjoys the process! By a process of elucidation I know also that it is not the doctor with the beard, nor the curate with the smile, nor the Caldecote squire who rides the white horse, nor the squeaky person who sings. It isn't this neighbourhood which holds the treasure. She has an air of calmness and detachment in partaking of your rural joys. Not a flicker of `Will he come?' ... Methinks my friend, he lives afar!" The smile broadened upon Martin's lips. Women, the most sensible of women, had a way of searching for sentimental reasons for the most prosaic happenings; it was an interesting trait, and from the altitude of a man's sound common-sense, attractive enough. It pleased him to hear Grizel imagining love stories with Katrine as heroine, without foundation as they were. "Can't you go a little further and discover his name and address? It would be interesting to know." "Jim. India," replied Grizel with a promptness which startled her hearer into attention at last. The face which confronted him was full of triumph, and a malicious delight in his discomfiture. He stared discomfited, amazed, subtly aggrieved. "_Jim_, India! There _is_ no Jim! She knows no one there, not a soul, except Jack Middleton and Dorothea. What put it into your head to fancy such a thing? Has she--?"