“How long are you staying here?” she said. “We shall stop for another fortnight, I suppose, unless my husband suddenly takes it into his head to run away. Even then I shall probably stay. I love the place; let me see—to-day’s the fourteenth—yes, we shall probably be here until the twenty-eighth.” “I must get back when the month is up,” said Maradick. “But I hate to think of going back. I’m enjoying every minute of it, but I don’t think my wife will be sorry. The heat doesn’t suit her.” “I hope,” she bent forward a little and laid her hand on his chair, “that you didn’t think it very impertinent of me to speak as I did at the picnic the other day. I thought afterwards that I had, perhaps, said too much. But then I felt that you were different from most men, that you would understand. I trust too much, I think, to intuition.” “No, please don’t think that,” he said eagerly. “We have only got another fortnight here. Why shouldn’t we be friends? I’m beginning to think that I have wasted too much of my life by being afraid of going too far, of saying the wrong thing. I have begun to understand life differently since I have been here.” Whether he implied that it was since he had known her that he had begun to understand, she did not know; at any rate she would take it for that. “There are so many things that I could tell you,” she said. “I think you are to be trusted. It is not often that a woman can feel that about anyone.” “Thank you for saying that,” he said, looking her full in the face; “I will try and deserve it.” She touched his hand with hers and felt a delicious little thrill, then she heard steps and moved to the fireplace. Lady Gale and Alice Du Cane came into the room, and it was evident at once that they were upset. Lady Gale talked to Maradick, but it was obvious that her mind was elsewhere. “Has Tony been with you this afternoon?” she said. “Alice says she saw him about four o’clock, but no one has seen him since. He hasn’t come back, apparently.” “No,” Maradick said, “I haven’t seen him since breakfast.” She looked at him for a moment, and he felt that her look had something of reproach in it. He suddenly was conscious that he was, in their eyes at any rate, responsible for anything that Tony might do. He ought to have stood guard. And, after all, where had the boy been? He should have been back by now. “It is really too bad,” Lady Gale said. “He knows that his father dislikes unpunctuality at meals above all things, and he has been late again and again just lately. I must speak to him. He’s later than ever to-night. Where did you see him, Alice?” “Down on the sand. But he didn’t see _me_.” She spoke uneasily, and Maradick saw at once that she was keeping something back. “He’s been going about with a Punch and Judy man recently,” said Mrs. Lester. “I have nothing to say against Punch and Judy men personally. I always want to stop in the street and watch; but as a continual companion——”