"It's most grateful and comforting to have a gold-mine in the family," cried Jill, making languishing eyes at the senior partner. Of course she flirted with him--Jill flirted with everything in the shape of a man--monopolising his attention on all occasions in a manner which would have been somewhat trying to most elder sisters. "But I know you don't mind. You like best of all to be with Miles," said Jill easily, when some remark of the sort was made, and Betty's reply held an unexpected tartness. "I don't mind in the least. It is a matter of perfect unconcern to me how Mr Gerard behaves; but you are my sister. I am sorry to see you lowering your dignity, by being so silly, and flighty, and ridiculous! I am sure he must laugh at you in private?" "He laughs to my face, dear. I amuse him wonderfully. He told me yesterday that I was as good as a tonic. Such a pity you should bother your poor old head about me! _I_ understand men, my dear!" The insinuation of that emphasised "I" was unmistakable. Jill began to hum--an aggravating habit of hers when she felt the mistress of a situation--and tripped lightly out of the room. And Betty sat and thought. Burning like a furnace, throbbing in every nerve, shaking her even as she sat, came a sudden fierce heat of anger such as she had not experienced for many a long year. She had been accustomed to regard Jill's flirtation from a mental height of affectionate disdain, to laugh with purest amusement at her assumption of superiority, but now of a sudden indifference had changed to anger and a sore rankling of jealousy, which puzzled as much as it disturbed. It could not be that she herself coveted Mr Gerard's attention! Cynthia, Nan Vanburgh, all her friends had remarked times and again upon her indifference to masculine admiration, for, strange as it might seem, that romantic interview in the fog six years before had linked her sympathies so strangely with one man's lot that she had had none to spare for later comers. Under God's providence she had saved a life, and while those voiceless messengers told of its preservation, it must remain the one supreme interest of life. Some day "Ralph" would come home. Some day he would appear before her to announce his task completed, and to claim her friendship as his reward. Her mother pleaded with her not to allow a romantic fancy to ruin her life, pointed out that "Ralph" might have married long before now, that even if he returned she might be bitterly disappointed in his identity. In vain! Betty could not argue. She _felt_--and that was the end of the matter. The sympathetic attraction was too strong to be one-sided. At the other side of the ocean "Ralph" was waiting for her, even as she for him, and the meeting would surely come. It might be years hence, but--marvellous thought!--it might be to-day. Each fresh awakening brought with it a thrill and a hope.