"I don't know whom you mean," he said at last with some discomfiture. "In the old days you were always apt to fancy that the girls were after me, and I can't say that you ever gave them much encouragement,"--he added with a rather clumsy attempt at playfulness. "The person I have in my mind," persisted Mrs. Rigby, "isn't exactly a girl; she's just what we were talking about--a nice, kind woman--and you never seem to mind meeting her." "Do you--can you possibly mean----" "--Matilda Wellow? Yes, of course I do. It's astonishing to me, it's even surprising to Matthew, that you've never noticed how much she likes you. Why, she's the only person in Market Dalling who ever takes any trouble about little Rosy, or who ever gives the child anything; Rosy always calls her Auntie Tiddy." "Matilda Wellow?" he repeated, honestly bewildered. "Why, of course I like her, and think well of her, but I've never thought of her--and don't believe she's ever thought of me, Kate--in that way!" "Don't you?" she said drily. "There's none so blind as those who won't see." Then, prompted by a shrewd instinct, she remained quite silent, and withdrew her anxious gaze from her brother's face. Only to-day Banfield had received a letter from South Africa which had sorely tempted him to throw up everything and make a home in the country which, perhaps unfortunately for himself, held none of the glamour of the unknown. As a matter of fact, the letter was now in his pocket, and he felt guiltily aware of the angry pain with which his sister would regard the offer, especially if she guessed how tempting was its effect on his imagination. But during their strange conversation he had realised, as he had never done before, that there were only two ways open to him--either to go away and make a new life, or to attempt some such solution of his troubles as that which his sister had just proposed to him. So it was that during those moments of tense silence Matilda Wellow assumed in David Banfield's mind the importance of an only alternative. Perhaps the very fact that the young man was so familiar with her personality, while always regarding her as a contemporary of his sister, made it easier for him to come to a sudden decision. To another important fact--never forgotten for a moment by Mrs. Rigby--namely, that Miss Wellow was the wealthiest spinster in Market Dalling, Banfield gave no thought, and it certainly played no part in his hurried, anxious self-communing.