While he was speaking, gazing at his sister and her friend with an accusing glance, Barbara went out, and for a moment the other two stayed on alone together. Arabella rose and faced her brother. Her own nerves were not wholly under control. Neither her conscience nor her heart was really at ease. "I don't know, James, and I don't inquire, what your relations to Mrs. Rebell may be! But this I do know--you will not advance your friendship with her by being savage to me. Besides, it is so absurd! However delightful she finds your company, she may yet prefer to be occasionally with me. I have been doing--I am doing--all I can for you." "What do you mean?" Berwick's steady, angry gaze disconcerted his sister, but she was mentally adroit, and determined not to fear him in his present mood. "You know best what I ought to mean!" she cried. "You apparently take pleasure in Mrs. Rebell's company, and it was to please you that I asked her to come here. I mean nothing else. But I should like to add that, now I know her, I have grown to like, and even to respect her." Berwick's face softened, but again he looked at her in the way she dreaded as she added, "I do not think you should act so as to make those about you aware that you so greatly prefer her company to that of our other guests. I am sure Mr. O'Flaherty has noticed it. Perhaps I ought to add that I am speaking entirely for her sake." * * * * * On leaving Miss Berwick and her brother, Mrs. Rebell went up to her room. There she sat down and fulfilled a neglected duty,--the writing of a long letter to Grace Johnstone. She did not find the task an easy one. She knew that her friend would expect to be told much of the occupants of Chancton Cottage, and especially of Oliver. The writer was well aware how letters were treasured at Santa Maria, and, till the last fortnight she had written to the woman who had been so good a friend to her by every mail. Suddenly she bethought herself of the ball. Why, here was a subject all ready to her pen! But Barbara was no polite letter-writer, and she found the description difficult; especially did her references to Oliver and to his mother seem hypocritical. During those hours at Halnakeham Castle she had been scarcely aware of the young man's existence, while Mrs. Boringdon she actually disliked. One reason why Barbara had been glad to come to Fletchings had been that it meant escape from Boringdon's constant presence at the Priory, and the daily morning walk with him to the home farm. She had come to resent Oliver's assumption of--was it brotherly?--interest in what she did and left undone. The thought that in three days she would again be subject to his well-meant criticism and eager, intimate advice certainly added another and a curiously acute touch of discomfort to her return to Chancton. * * * * *