"Theo--it's perfectly ridiculous the way you put yourself out for that boy!" she protested with unusual heat, kindled by a hidden spark of jealousy. "It's bad enough to have you giving up everything, and making Honor and me thoroughly uncomfortable, without this sort of nonsense on the top of it all." Honor glanced up in quick remonstrance; but Desmond caught the look in her eyes, and it was enough. "Haven't you the sense to see that just because he is so fond of you he _ought_ to be allowed to know how much trouble he has given you. It's the only way to make him more careful, now he's back again; and if you _will_ go on in this way, I shall end in speaking to him myself." She had overshot the mark. Desmond shut the book with a snap; flung it on the table, and sprang up with such anger in his eyes that his wife shrank back instinctively. Her movement, slight as it was, checked the impetuous speech upon his lips. "You will do nothing of the sort," he said in a restrained voice. "It is a matter entirely between him and me; and that's an end of the subject, once for all." Evelyn, startled into silence, stood motionless till the study door closed behind her husband; then, with a sigh of exasperation, hurried out of the room, leaving Honor to her own disturbing thoughts. * * * * * Each month was forcing upon the girl a clearer revelation of the clash of temperament, which threatened to bring about serious disunion between these two, whose happiness had become a vital part of her life; and her spirit was troubled beyond measure. The strongest passion of Honor Meredith's heart was the true woman's passion--to protect and help. But worldly wisdom warned her that her hands were tied; that man and wife must work out their own salvation, or the reverse, without help or hindrance from her. Since their return from Murree such flashes of dissension had become increasingly frequent between them. It is astonishing how quickly two people can fall into a habit of discord. Abstinence from tobacco was not without its effect upon Desmond's nerves and temper, tried as they were by Evelyn's pin-prick methods of warfare; while she herself was often strung into irritability by her own unacknowledged troubles. The passing relief wrought by Miss Kresney's loan had evaporated with the realisation that she had only contracted a debt in another direction--a debt more embarrassing than all the rest put together; for she knew that she would never have the courage to speak of it to her husband. Miss Kresney had told her to take her time in the matter of repayment, and she had taken it in generous measure. Not a fraction of the three hundred rupees had been repaid as yet; and, by way of atonement, Evelyn felt constrained to a more decisive friendliness with both brother and sister--a fact which Owen Kresney noted with satisfaction; and which did not improve matters between herself and Theo.