"We shall miss you," he said gravely. "You have a way with you that makes for every one's comfort. You can tell my aunt that we're very good friends, eh?" "Yes, I think we are," said Anstice, with one of her frank sweet glances; "and if anything goes wrong, and you want me back, wire to me." He got into the carriage for a moment before the guard came along to shut the door. And, taking both her hands in his, he bent and gave her a kiss. "Some time I shall claim the same from you," he said; "we must show Ruffie that grown-up people do kiss sometimes." "Dear little Ruffie," said Anstice tenderly, steering away from the topic of herself, "don't spoil him, Justin. Now, just a last word! Will you, for the sake of your little girls, go to church with them next Sunday morning? They will play truant, if you don't, and I want them to attend church regularly, to get into the habit of it whilst they are young." "I'll see." "I hope you will. Good-bye." The train was off, and Justin strode away, got into the car and as he drove home was conscious of a strangely desolate feeling. Was it possible, he asked himself angrily, that this woman, whom he had only married for the good of his children and household, was stealing her way into his heart? He could honestly assure himself that he had given her no encouragement, but neither had she put forth any effort to attract him. She was always her happy natural self, and seemed as happy—perhaps happier—without him as with him. "I've got the best of our bargain," he muttered to himself. "And I believe I have found a woman who is truly sincere." CHAPTER III AWAY FROM HOME ANSTICE found her cousin, as she expected, much in her usual health. She had had a bad cold, but was getting over it, and had come up to London for the purpose of shopping combined with amusement. Anstice was taken everywhere; she found opportunity of seeing her cousins in town, who had been much astonished by the secrecy and suddenness of her marriage, and very much hurt that they had not been asked to it. She shopped a little for herself, and a great deal for Lady Lucy, and it was not till a week had passed that she got any time for a quiet talk with her old cousin. Then one wet afternoon they sat over a blazing fire together in Lady Lucy's comfortable Early Victorian drawing-room. "I am afraid," Lady Lucy began, "that you have been having a lonely time of it shut away with those naughty children all the lovely summer months, but now in the winter it must be worse. I do not like the country in winter. I always leave Norfolk, as you know, every October, and don't go back to it till May or June. Of course now Justin is home, it will be better. My dear, you and he must entertain a little. Have you not done so? He has some rough shooting and there's good hunting, and you could have quite a nice little house-party." "I don't think he cares for society any more than I do."