"But surely the legacy my father left Mr. Winnington would get a new motor!" "But he hasn't taken it, and never will!" Lady Tonbridge had cried, amazed at the girl's ignorance. "Why not?" Delia had demanded, almost fiercely, looking very tall, and oddly resentful. Why not? "Because one doesn't take payment for that sort of thing!" had been Mark's laughing explanation, and the only explanation that she, Madeleine, had been able to get out of him. She handed it on--to Delia's evident discomfort. So, all along, this very annoying--though attaching--young woman had imagined that Winnington was being handsomely paid for putting up with her? * * * * * And Winnington? Here again, it was plain there was a change of attitude, though what it meant Madeleine could not satisfactorily settle with herself. In the early days of his guardianship he had been ready enough to come to her, his most intimate woman-friend, and talk about his ward, though always with that chivalrous delicacy which was his gift among men. Of late he had been much less ready to talk; a good sign! And now, since Gertrude Marvell's blessed departure, he was more at Maumsey than he had ever been before. He seemed indeed to be pitting his own influence against Miss Marvell's, and in his modest way, yet consciously, to be taking Delia in hand, and endeavouring to alter her outlook on life; clearing away, so far as he could, the atmosphere of angry, hearsay propaganda in which she had spent her recent years, and trying to bring her face to face with the deeper loves and duties and sorrows which she in her headstrong youth knew so little about, while they entered so profoundly into his own upright and humane character. Well, but did all this mean _love_?--the desire of the man for the woman. Madeleine Tonbridge pondered it. She recollected a number of little acts and sayings, throwing light upon his profound feeling for the girl, his sympathy with her convictions, her difficulties, her wild revolts against existing abuses and tyrannies. "I learn from her"--he had said once, in conversation,--"she teaches me many things." Madeleine could have laughed in his face--but for the passionate sincerity in his look.