"You do not know what you are asking. I cannot!" "I think it is you who do not understand. The matter is so simple; those letters, that journal——" "No—no." "You refuse?" he exclaimed. Indignation was even stronger than surprise. "You do not know what you are asking!" she repeated. And the cry of passion in her voice again startled both him and Aspasia. Bethune rose, took up his hat in silence; stood awhile, his steel-pale eyes flaming upon the woman whom his friend had, from all the world, chosen to make his wife. "I trust you will think it over," said he at length, as soon as he could control himself sufficiently to speak. He paused again; but Lady Gerardine made no reply. She was still fixing him with that inexplicable gaze that seemed one of terror. "I shall call again," said he, well-nigh in the tone of a menace; then bowed and turned away. At the door he halted. "But perhaps you did not keep those papers?" he said, upon a sudden scornful thought. Still she held her peace, and in his heart he knew that this random shaft of his had fallen wide of the mark; that, whatever might be the explanation of her attitude, it was not indifference. Thoroughly dissatisfied with the result of his interview, with himself, and the whole situation, he strode down the long corridors into the cool echoing hall, where many pillars showed with faint barbaric tints between aisles of gloom. At the very threshold of the colour and sunshine without, some one overtook him with patter of flying feet, some one nipped him by the sleeve with determined fingers. He looked, and it was Miss Aspasia. Her hazel eyes were rounder than ever; so was her button of a mouth. Her hair seemed to stand out, an aureole of amazement, from her baby face. "Don’t be angry with Aunt Rosamond. Perhaps she will change her mind." He wheeled round. "Have you any idea," he asked, "of the reason for her refusal?" Aspasia shook her head so violently that the halo danced again. She pursed her lips with a long drawn-out: "No. You see," she added quickly, arresting him, as with head bent in thought he was once more proceeding on his way, "you see, we never speak of Aunt’s first husband here. At least she never does. There is no picture of him about, not a sign of anything that has ever belonged to him. As far as she is concerned, it is just as if he had never been." Raymond Bethune, of the Guides, jerked his head upwards in melancholy and bitter confirmation. In the midst of his own preoccupation and disappointment he could not, however, help being struck with the engaging quality of the face thrust so confidingly close to his. Those yellow hazel eyes had depths of almost infantile candour.