As Constance and Thorndyke drove along the sweet-scented country lanes, crossing streams by rickety bridges and bumping up and down hills, Thorndyke felt himself near Paradise. Constance was so kind to him, so unaffectedly glad to see him. Her country life had freshened up her complexion, and she looked positively girlish, and her high spirits were infectious. She described the house-party--Mrs. Willoughby, half a dozen Virginia cousins of different ages and sexes, a French friend and her husband travelling in America, and Cathcart, the navy man--at whose name Thorndyke felt a sensible diminution of his happiness. Constance was charmed with Malvern Court, and declared it had been the happiest summer of her life--almost. “And when I think of those weary, dreary foreign watering-places of which I grew so tired, and of those tiresome Swiss hotels, I think I am in Heaven to be once more in my own country among my own kith and kin, and hearing no language but good, honest English.” “I intended to go to Europe this summer,” said Thorndyke, meekly. “I had planned it for two or three years.” “Why did you not go?” asked Constance, heedlessly. “Because you asked me to visit you,” replied Thorndyke, something within him forcing the truth out of him against his will, and then he added, hastily: “Forgive me, I’m a perfect brute. I wouldn’t blame you in the least if you sent me back north by the next train.” “Get up, Frolic, you idiot!” cried Constance to her smart cob, and flicking him with the whip. Her face coloured, her eyes shone--it was plain she was not displeased. But a horrible suspicion occurred to Thorndyke--possibly she was, after all, a thorough-going flirt! Many of those Southern women are, and can’t imagine why a man should object to having a football made of his dearest affections as long as it amuses the lady in the case. This gruesome and uncanny thought, together with Cathcart’s presence at Malvern, was a huge fly in Thorndyke’s ointment, but misery is as much a concomitant of love as joy is, and Thorndyke had his share of miseries.