“It is my fault,” she felt miserably; “it is all my fault, and I am not fair to Tom. He doesn’t understand me. I see him look at me sometimes, and I don’t wonder at it. He doesn’t understand me a bit; he has every right to—to think—I love him, and I don’t—I don’t. I love Hugh!” It was an hour later that Marjorie put in an appearance at Hurst Dormer. Hugh was there, and Hugh was in. It brought relief. She wanted to cry with the relief she felt. Over the tea-table, where she poured out the tea from the old silver Anne teapot, she looked at him, and saw many changes that one not loving him, as she knew she did now, might have missed. The cheery frank smile was there yet, but it had lost much of its happiness. His eyes were no less kind, but they had a tired look about them, a wistful look. Oh, that she might cheat herself into believing that their wistfulness was for her! But Marjorie was not the little fool her aunt called her. She was a woman, and was gifted with a woman’s understanding. “He does not love me now, not as he did. I had my chance, and I said no, and now—now it is gone for ever.” And he, leaning back in his chair, watched her pouring out the tea as he had a few days ago watched another pouring out tea in a London hotel. The sight of Joan performing that domestic duty had brought to him then a vision of this same old room, this very old teapot, that his mother had used. And now, seeing Marjorie here, pouring out the tea, the only vision, the only remembrance that it brought to him was the memory of another girl pouring out tea in a London hotel. “Hugh, have you seen her—Joan?” He started—started at the sound of the name that was forever in his thoughts. “Yes, dear,” he said simply, for why should he lie to this child? “Oh!” she said. “Oh, and—and Hugh, she and you—” She paused, she held her face down that he might not see it. “Joan Meredyth,” he said slowly, “and I met in Town a few days ago. She told me then, that she is engaged to be married.” “Oh!” Marjorie said, and her heart leaped with a new-born hope. “And I,” Hugh went on, “am worried and anxious about her.” “Hugh!” “I can’t worry you, little girl. It is nothing in which you could help; it is my fault, my folly!” “Mine!” she said. “No, it is mine. The whole idea was mine; I shoulder the blame of it all. It has succeeded in what we attempted. You are all right, you and Tom. I’ve made a lovely mess of everything else. But that does not matter so much. What we wanted, we won, eh?” He smiled at her, little dreaming that she had only won dead-sea fruit. “Why are you worried and anxious about Joan?” “I am not going to tell you, dear. I can’t very well. Besides, you couldn’t help. You are happy, you are all right. Tom is in high favour with her ladyship, so that’s good, and you—you and Tom are happy, eh?” “Yes,” she said miserably.