Bebe greets him with a light laugh that has nothing in it of nervousness or suppressed pleasure. It is purely indifferent. For the moment I feel puzzled and disappointed. "Strangemore seems to be our established meeting-ground after long absences," she says, giving him her hand. "Let me congratulate you on having escaped cholera and lawless tribes in the East." "I have only been a week in England since my return," replies he, ceremoniously, "and have been kept pretty busy all that time, or I would have allowed myself the pleasure of calling upon you and Mrs. Beatoun. I did not know you were again staying with Lady Handcock?" "Oh, Harriet cannot do without me now," says Bebe, with a little saucy glance at Harry, who smiles and shakes her head. "She finds me invaluable." "How infinitely obliged your mother must be to Lady Handcock!" says Chandos, mischievously. "For taking me off her hands? Ah! see what comes of associating with barbarians," retorts Bebe, with a shrug. Yet, with all their badinage and apparent unconcern, I can perceive an undercurrent of constraint between these two. During all the first week, this forced gayety and determined forgetfulness of the sweet and bitter past continues and then it falls away. Silence and avoidance take their place, and in Chandos especially I notice a distant avoidance of all converse bordering on a _tete-a-tete_. I am beginning to despair of any good result arising from this second bringing together of them in my house, then one evening shortly before the termination of their visit a something, a mere trifle, occurs, that is yet sufficient to alter the tenor of more lives than one. It is the 27th of August. Dinner is at an end, and, tired of strolling in the grounds and gardens--so softly perfumed by the night flowers--we three women pass into the lighted drawing-room, while Marmaduke and Chandos linger outside on the balcony to finish their cigars. I let my fingers wander idly over the piano, and now and again hum softly some old air or ballad. "Bebe, sing something for us to-night," I say, coaxingly rising from the piano-stool. She is not fond of letting us hear her perfectly beautiful voice. "Anything you like yourself; only sing." "Don't ask me," she objects, languidly. "It is so long since I have sung that I scarcely know any song correctly. Harriet will tell you I rarely if ever touch the piano." "But you must," I persist. "Break down if you will, only let me hear your voice. Remember there are no ungenerous critics here, and nobody's singing pleases me so much as yours." "Do, Miss Beatoun," says some one. It is Chandos. He and Marmaduke have come in through the open window, and are now standing in its embrasure, framed in by the hanging curtains on either side. The tone of his voice strikes me as being odd. He is looking eagerly, fixedly at her; will she refuse this sudden unexpected request of his? Coming after his late coldness it surprises even me.