Gillie was as touched and flattered as it was in him to be, for he remembered his sister as having been always quiet and restrained. And when they had parted, just before he had gone out to Mexico, she had seemed almost inanimate with--had it been vicarious?--shame and pain. "I thought I'd take you by surprise." He looked round him with a pleased, measuring look. "Nothing altered!" he exclaimed, "and you've got a fire? That's good! I feel it awfully cold here, I mean in England. They haven't started fires yet, over at Freshley." He repeated, "Nothing's altered--you least of all, Laura. Why, you don't look a day older!" She sighed. "I feel," she said, "a lifetime older." "I don't!" he cried briskly, "I feel younger. And Godfrey?" His voice altered, becoming just a little graver. "Time stood still with Godfrey too, eh?" "I don't think Godfrey's altered much----" She was hesitating. And then, very carefully, she added the words, "Godfrey's quite good to me, you know, Gillie." "Oh, well--of course he always liked you the best!" And then he laughed, but to them both his laughter sounded just a little hollow. "I gather that he and Tropenell don't quite hit it off?" She turned on him quickly, and he was puzzled at the look of extreme astonishment which came over her face. "What makes you think that?" she exclaimed. "They're the greatest friends! Godfrey likes Oliver Tropenell better than I thought he'd ever like anybody." And then, before Gillie Baynton could answer this, to him, surprising statement, the door opened, and the man of whom they were speaking stood gazing into the room as if he could not believe in the reality of the sight before him. The brother and sister moved apart, and Gilbert Baynton held out his hand. "Well, Godfrey," he exclaimed, "here I am again! I expect Tropenell told you that I was thinking of coming to Europe? But I can't be more than a month in the old country--if as long--unless Tropenell goes back leaving me behind for a bit. He did make some such suggestion, but I think we're more likely to go back together." As he spoke on, he let his hand slowly drop to his side, for the man he was addressing had made no answering movement of welcome, or even of greeting. Such a flood of wrath had mounted up into Godfrey Pavely's brain when he saw Gilbert Baynton standing there, with his arm round Laura's shoulder, that he was fearful the words he meant to utter would never get themselves said. He had never felt so angry before, and the sensation had a curious physical effect on him. He felt, as country folk so vividly put it, "all of a tremble." A curious, ominous, sinister silence fell on the room. Laura, unconsciously, drew a little nearer to her brother; and Godfrey, who was staring straight at her, saw the movement, and it intensified the passion of anger which was working in his brain as wine does in the body.