There was a tired look in Maude’s face that afternoon, which was very perceptible to Francis Tredethlyn, although quite invisible to the neutral-tinted croquet-players. Her eyes wandered away sometimes from the balls and mallets, and fixed themselves, with a sad, dreamy look, upon the sunlit river or the distant woodland. Francis saw this, and that faithful Cornish heart grew heavy in sympathy with Miss Hillary’s unknown trouble. There must be a little of the Newfoundland dog in the nature of a man who can love hopelessly; a little of that superhuman fidelity, a little of that canine endurance which has inspired so many odious comparisons to the disparagement of the inferior animal called man. Francis Tredethlyn’s eyes followed Miss Hillary with a dog-like patience all this afternoon, during which he established himself in the estimation of the flaxen-haired droppers-in as one of the vilest of croquet-players and worst-mannered of men. But the croquet-players departed, after taking tea out of a very ugly Queen-Anne teapot and some old Sèvres cups and saucers, which had been bought for Miss Hillary at the sale of a defunct collector’s goods and chattels, at Messrs. Christie and Manson’s. Francis stayed to dinner, and dined alone with Maude and her father, and found very little to say for himself. He was distracted by the sight of Maude’s pale face and sadly thoughtful eyes. How changed she was from the bright and sparkling creature whom he remembered a few months ago in that house! How changed! What was the secret trouble which had worked that transformation? What could it be except Miss Hillary’s sorrow for the circumstances that divided her from her distant lover? There could be no other cause for her unhappiness, since her father’s commercial difficulties had been smoothed by that twenty thousand pounds so freely advanced to him; and it never occurred to Francis that Maude Hillary could possibly give herself any uneasiness about that money, so lightly parted with by him; nor could he think that any new trouble threatened the merchant’s peace, for Mr. Hillary was specially gay and pleasant this evening. After dinner Maude strolled out into the garden, and down to that delicious terrace by the river, where the big stone vases of geraniums looked dark and grim in the twilight. She walked slowly up and down the long esplanade with a filmy lace handkerchief tied coquettishly over her head, and her long muslin dress sweeping and rustling after her like the draperies of a fashionably-attired ghost. Francis Tredethlyn furtively watched that white-robed figure in the shadowy distance as he sat at the dinner-table with Mr. Hillary, and would fain have left his glass, filled with the merchant’s rarest Burgundy, for a stroll by the quiet river. Perhaps Mr. Hillary perceived this, for he presently gave the young man his release.