"I don't think Belle is so much to be pitied after all," she cried captiously. "Other people are not always having legacies left them, and £30,000 means more to a widow than to a married woman. Besides, she needn't remain a widow unless she likes; Philip Marsden has been in love with her all the time." Whereat Mildred, signing her daily letter to Charlie Allsop with a flourish which would have done credit to the heiress of millions, interrupted her sister hotly. "I think it's a beastly shame to say so all the same, Maudie. I dare say it's true; but I'm sure if any one said such things of me when I was a widow, I'd never marry the man. No, not if I liked him ever so much! I'll tell you what it is: Belle has had a hard time of it; and if poor Dick were only here, as well as his money, I believe she would marry him and be happy." "My dear girls!" expostulated their mother feebly, "her husband is not six weeks dead till next Tuesday. If any one had suggested marriage to me when poor Colonel Stuart--" "Oh, that is different, mamma," retorted Mildred impatiently. "Belle only married John by mistake. Lots of girls do the same thing. Mabel has, with her Major; but then she will never find it out, so it doesn't matter. Charlie says--" "Oh, if Charlie says anything, that settles the matter," broke in Maud peevishly. "I wish you two would get married, and then you would soon cease to think each other perfection. For my part, I consider Belle is not to be pitied. She has plenty of money, and by and by she will have a baby to amuse her when she's tired of other things. What more can any woman want? I'm very sorry for her now, but grief doesn't last forever, and after all she never was in love with John. That's one comfort." Perhaps if Belle had been asked she might have denied the last statement. If she had loved him, the past would certainly have been less of a regret, the future less of a fear. What was to be the end of it all? That question clamoured for answer as the big ship began to slide from its moorings. Leaning over the taffrail, her eyes heavy with unshed tears, she could see nothing but Philip standing bareheaded in the boat which slipped landwards so fast. A minute before his hands had been in hers, his kind voice faltering good-bye in her ears. And now? Suddenly her clasped fingers opened in a gesture of entreaty. "Philip!" she whispered. "Comeback, come back!" But the swirl of the screw had caught the boat and Major Marsden was in his place at the tiller-ropes, his face set landwards. The rowers bent to their oars and so, inch by inch, yard by yard, the rippling sunlit water grew between those two. Was that to be the end? CHAPTER XXVII.