Marcia tripped over it, scorning his help. But her thoughts were busy with the distant figure. Mrs. Betts, no doubt; the cause of all the trouble and talk in the neighborhood, and the occasion of Corry's outrageous letter to Lord William. "I think I ought to tell you," she said, stopping, with a look of perplexity, "that Corry is sure to come and talk to me--about that story. I don't think I can prevent him." "Won't you hand him on to me? It is really not a story for your ears." He spoke gravely. "I'm afraid Cony would call that shirking. I--I think perhaps I had better have it out with him--myself. I remember all you said to me!" "I only want to save you." His expression was troubled, but not without a certain touch of sternness that she perceived. He changed the subject immediately, and they walked on rapidly toward the garden. Lady William first perceived them--perceived, too, that they were hand in hand. She broke off her chat with Sir Wilfrid Bury under the limes, and rising in sudden agitation she hurried across the lawn to her husband. The Dean and Sir Louis Ford had been discussing Woman Suffrage over their cigarettes, and Sir Louis, who was a stout opponent, had just delivered himself of the frivolous remark--in answer to some plea of the Dean's on behalf of further powers for the female sex: "Oh, no doubt, somewhere between the Harem and the Woolsack, it will be necessary to draw the line!"--when they too caught sight of the advancing figures. The Dean's eyebrows went up. A smile, most humorous and human, played over his round cheeks and button mouth. "Have they drawn it? Looks like it!" he said, under his breath. "Eh!--what?" Sir Louis, the most incorrigible of elderly gossips, eagerly put up his eyeglass. "Do you suspect anything?"