It was one of Tony’s disadvantages that he was now and then unduly sensitive, for the deception he had been guilty of on the night in question was by comparison trifling. Still, he remembered with unpleasant distinctness another incident of a somewhat similar description, in which it was a little brooch that figured and not an engagement ring, and the red lips he had stooped to were not those of Violet Wayne. Tony could recall their tempting curve, and the gleam in the dark eyes that met his own, as well as the little lodge garden that was very still and shady that drowsy afternoon. It was perhaps the memory of it which made him flick the horse viciously with the whip. Then he felt that his companion’s eyes were fixed upon him. “The brute is afraid of shadows,” he said. Violet turned her eyes on him, and there was a curious little smile in them. “I wonder if the complaint is infectious. He goes steadily with me,” she said. “Tony, you haven’t the hands you had.” Tony flushed visibly, for the moonlight was on his face now they had left the copse behind, and he remembered what had passed between him and the girl in a room at Northrop the night Godfrey Palliser died. “Well,” he said a trifle dryly, “if you are right it’s due to worry, which, as everybody knows, never did agree with me. While agricultural property brings in what it does just now, keeping everything straight at Northrop isn’t quite so easy as some folks seem to fancy.” “Still, the sale of that land to the electrical company and the ground rent you are getting from the other concern should simplify it,” said the girl. “You can’t quite understand these affairs”; and Tony, who raised the whip, let it drop again. Violet once more looked at him steadily, and her voice was low as she said, “If they were explained to me I think I could, but we will let that pass. What you said a little while ago reminds me of the weeks that followed the night you put that ring on. You had more cause for anxiety— and yet we had no cares then.” “No,” said Tony. “I will remember those weeks while I live. Nothing could take them away from me.” “And now there is a difference! A little shadow that dims the brightness. Tony, you feel it, too?” The man, who did not answer, laid both hands on the reins, for, and he recognized the significance of it, they swung round a bend of the road into sight of Appleby’s inheritance just then. A pile of harsh brickwork rose in front of them, jarring upon the harmonies of the night; there was a ringing of hammers, and their eyes were dazzled by the glare of a great light under which a swarm of bent black figures were toiling. The horse broke into a gallop, the dog‐cart jolted furiously, and for five anxious minutes Tony, who set his lips, dragged at the reins. Then, as the startled beast was forced into a trot again, he laughed petulantly.