"You are always very busy, are you not?" said Nina, speaking for the first time. "Pretty well," said Godfrey, smiling. "I lost no time on the journey, and I was very glad to get off a day sooner than I had expected. I came straight here from the station, trusting to you to tell me what hotel I had better go to." "You came straight from the station? Then you've had nothing to eat. How thoughtless of us!" exclaimed Lettice, and, looking round, she saw that Nina had already disappeared. "There is an hotel close by," said Arthur. "I'll go round with you if you like, as soon as you've had some dinner." "Thank you," said Mr Auriol. "I'm very sorry to give you so much trouble, but I wanted to look you up at once. I can only stay so very short a time: I must be back in England within the week." "How can you talk of giving us trouble?" said Arthur; "it is you who are giving yourself a great deal for us;" and he glanced at Lettice as if to hint to her that she should endorse his speech. But she said nothing; only later in the evening, when their visitor was just about leaving, she said to him in a quiet but somewhat studied voice-- "I hope you will be able to see something of the neighbourhood while you are here. There are so many pretty excursions, and in a week one can do a good deal. Arthur himself has not seen much; he has only been three weeks with us all the months we have been here. And he would enjoy going about with you." Godfrey Auriol was not deficient in perception, still less in quick resolution when he saw occasion for it. He hesitated, but for half a second only, before he replied. "Yes," he said calmly, "it would be very pleasant were it feasible. But you know, Miss Morison, it is not for _pleasure_ I have come all this way. There is a great deal of business to be seen to, and for some of it I must have your attention, though I would gladly spare you all trouble if I could. At what hour to-morrow may I come? It is no use putting off what has to be done, however painful." Lettice's colour rose high--all over her face; she felt the mortification doubly, since it was in the presence of her younger sister and brother. But she did her best not to show what she felt, and to any one not knowing her well, her emotion might have passed for what was only natural and almost seemly under the circumstances. And even in the tone of her voice as she answered, it required a nice and skilled observer to detect the latent armour of resistance in which she was determined to clothe herself. Unfortunately for her, her three companions, the two younger ones thanks to their intimate knowledge of her peculiarities, the third by dint of unusual and cultivated power of discrimination, which she herself had raised to suspicion, were not deceived by her words, in themselves perfectly unexceptionable.