She rose quickly and went out through the open French window. Cristiane was alone now, and Ismay had no mind for a solitary conversation with Mr. Wray, who had come into the house by the hall door to get ready for his train. “Mother can talk to him if she chooses, not I!” she thought, with a shrug of her shoulders. “I am a fool to mix myself up in it, I believe, and yet I haven’t much choice. Some one must look after this baby”--with a grudging glance at the girl whose bare head shone ruddy in the winter sun. Cristiane slipped her arm through Ismay’s, a trick the latter hated, yet she dared not take away her arm. “I feel so much better, Ismay,” she said softly, “as if I had been near father. That friend of your mother’s has been very kind.” “Very,” said Ismay dryly. “Don’t you like him?” “I don’t like him at all. But, of course, he has been very kind to you.” “What is the matter with him?” Cristiane was up in arms at once. “Nobody who wasn’t nice would do all he has done for utter strangers. You have no real reason for disliking him, have you?” “A very small one,” Miss Trelane returned calmly. “I’ll tell it to you some day--perhaps.” “Well, I have a very big reason for liking him, and I think you’re rather horrid about it,” she replied injuredly. “Don’t you want him to come back again?” “Not particularly,” said the girl, with an inward longing that he might break his neck on the way to the station. Cristiane laughed. “How funny you are! You look at the man as if he were a toad, and you only say ‘not particularly’ when I ask you if you mind his coming here.” “Well, then, I am sorry you asked him, if you must know.” “I wanted him,” Cristiane rejoined obstinately, “and I should be very ungrateful if I didn’t.” Ismay laughed; it was safer not to go any further, and there would be no good in driving Cristiane. “Gratitude is a vice; you never know where it may lead you,” she remarked. “He is coming to say good-by to you. I shall go in;” and she vanished. A thrill of relief went through her when she heard the crunching of wheels over the gravel as Marcus Wray drove off. When their last sound had died away, she stepped out on the terrace again and stood staring, with an incredulous joy that was almost pain. Mr. Cylmer was coming up the avenue, a sight to make any woman look with pleasure at him, in his spotless breeches and boots, and the scarlet coat that showed to the utmost advantage every line of his strong, splendid figure. He was walking and leading a very lame horse. “Why, here’s Miles!” Cristiane cried wonderingly. “And his horse can hardly crawl. I wonder what is the matter.” She forgot there had been any gap in his coming and going to Marchant’s Hold; his arriving at this unseemly hour was so like the old days, when he had always been welcome. “What on earth has happened to you?” she called, as he came nearer.