‘My cousin,’ Gundred reminded him. ‘Her mother was my father’s sister, Isabel Mortimer. Don’t you remember, I told you about her? Poor Aunt Isabel! She married a dreadful man who came over from Australia or New Zealand, and took her back there, and led her a most terrible life, I am afraid. Aunt Isabel died three years ago, and now her husband seems to have died, too, and the daughter has come to England to see her own people. We shall have to have her here, Kingston. I must write at once. I’ll let her have a line by this morning’s post. But I do wish Aunt Agnes ever wrote letters: we ought to have heard of Isabel’s arrival at least a week ago. We must certainly send for her at once.’ Gundred wanted her husband to protest against this sacrifice of their privacy, perhaps to forbid it. If he had done so, she would have resisted his objections, and eventually have made a wifely virtue of yielding to them. But the best of people are not without their small ungenerosities, and Kingston Darnley was in a mood to punish his wife for her obstinate chilliness. If their privacy were to give no real intimacy, it might just as well cease. ‘Capital!’ said Kingston. ‘We want someone to liven us up a bit. Write to your cousin and tell her to come here at once. She’ll be someone for you to talk to.’ ‘Won’t she--yes?’ assented Gundred, wounded indeed, but quite successful in concealing the fact. ‘Poor thing! I will send her a wire. She can be here by dinner-time. How odd of her, though, to think one likes being interrupted on one’s honeymoon! Do you suppose they do that kind of thing in the colonies?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know. I dare say she heard we had been here for more than a fortnight, and thought we must have had about enough of it.’ ‘Well, it will be very nice. Would you like to see her letter?’ ‘I don’t mind,’ answered Kingston indifferently. In the circumstances wild horses would not have forced him to confess how much he resented the invasion. Not even to himself would he confess it. But already he had conceived a keen dislike for his cousin, Isabel Darrell. ‘Quite an odd letter,’ commented Gundred; ‘not at all like anyone else’s. My poor aunt was always strange and eccentric--evidently Isabel takes after her mother.’ ‘Let me see,’ said Kingston, in the hope of finding something to feed his feeling for Isabel Darrell. Gundred handed him the letter. It was written in a large, flamboyant hand, on large flamboyant paper; twirls and flourishes abounded, and the signature was written with a sprawling arrogance that might have done credit to a second-rate actress. ‘DEAR MY COUSIN,’ it began,