She was a tall woman, still beautiful, though age had given her a certain angularity. The ravages of time had made it necessary for her to seek artificial aid for the strengthening of her attractions. Her mouth was thin and straight and uncompromising, her chin too bony to be beautiful. She smiled as she rustled across the room and offered her gloved hand to the young man. “You’re early, Gilbert,” she said. “Yes,” he replied awkwardly. Here was the opportunity which he sought, yet he experienced some reluctance in availing himself of the chance. He had released the girl as the door opened, and she had instinctively taken a step backward, and stood with her hands behind her, regarding him gravely and intently. “Really,” he said, “I wanted to see you.” “To see me?” asked Mrs. Cathcart archly. “No, surely not me!” Her smile comprehended the girl and the young man. For some reason which he could not appreciate at the moment Gilbert felt uncomfortable. “Yes, it was to see you,” he said, “but it isn’t remarkable at this particular period of time.” He smiled again. She held up a warning finger. “You must not bother about any of the arrangements. I want you to leave that entirely to me. You will find you have no cause to complain.” “Oh, it wasn’t that,” he said hastily, “it was something more--more--” He hesitated. He wanted to convey to her the gravity of the business he had in hand. And even as he approached the question of an interview, a dim realisation came to him of the difficulty of his position. How could he suggest to this woman, who had been all kindness and all sweetness to him, that he suspected her of motives which did credit neither to her head nor her heart? How could he broach the subject of his poverty to one who had not once but a hundred times confided to him that his expectations and the question of his future wealth were the only drawbacks to what she had described as an ideal love marriage? “I almost wish you were poor, Gilbert,” she had said. “I think riches are an awful handicap to young people circumstanced as you and Edith will be.” She had conveyed this suspicion of his wealth more than once. And yet, at a chance word from Leslie, he had doubted the purity of her motives! He remembered with a growing irritation that it had been Mrs. Cathcart who had made the marriage possible; the vulgar-minded might even have gone further, and suggested that she had thrown Edith at his head. There was plenty of groundwork for Leslie’s suspicion, he thought, as he looked at the tall, stylish woman before him. Only he felt ashamed that he had listened to the insidious suggestion. “Could you give me a quarter of an hour----” He stopped. He was going to say “before dinner,” but thought that possibly an interview after the meal would be less liable to interruption. “--after dinner?” “With pleasure,” she smiled. “What are you going to do? Confess some of the irregularities of your youth?”