“Of course her two brothers, who are used to the music can keep their heads,” went on Arthur, who rather resented the inroads which the afternoon’s play had made in his allowance; “so they made money, while we lost it.” Innocently as this was said, the speech struck an unpleasant note in the mind of Gerard, who had grown much more suspicious of late than he was by nature inclined to be. He was pondering the words, when presently he heard Arthur’s voice, behind him, saying with surprise and delight-- “What, you here! I am pleased to meet you. Are you staying here, then?” “Yes, I’m staying here,” answered a voice which Gerard recognized. And, in vague horror, he turned to find that this guest at the house of the Van Santens was no other than Rachel Davison. There was a mutual look of alarm in the eyes of the girl and Gerard as he turned sharply and found himself face to face with her. CHAPTER XIII The Priory gardens were looking lovely under the rays of the hot sun of the fading August afternoon; but the harmonious tints of tree and lawn, of bank and blossom, faded into an indistinct mass before the eyes of Gerard Buckland as he turned away from Rachel Davison, after a low-voiced greeting which he uttered mechanically, without knowing what he said. If she had been unmoved at the meeting, or if her manner and look had been different, he would not have been so much perturbed as he was. But it was not merely that she looked infinitely surprised, startled, and alarmed at the sight of him, but that there was in her face an expression which seemed to bear only one possible interpretation: she looked guilty. Try as he would to forget the impression her face made upon him at that first moment of astonishment at the meeting, he could not banish the disagreeable impression. She had turned at once from him, after the first words of greeting, to speak again to Arthur Aldington, and to make inquiries after the rest of his family. But Gerard saw in this rapid turning away from himself only another proof of guilty consciousness on her part that he was there and that he was watching her. He turned away into the gardens, leaving the terrace and going down towards the broad fish-pond, which lay in a hollow at the end of a series of velvety lawns broken up by flower beds which were a mass of tall, handsome, flowering plants. The gardens were one of the sights of the county, and even in the state of uneasiness and anxiety from which he was suffering, Gerard was conscious of their beauty. So, too, were other people. For wandering about among the high hedges of yew and over the soft lawns, he found a dozen groups of two and three persons, enjoying the warm summer air, and gathering under the shade of the lime trees where Mrs. Van Santen was pouring out tea.