What was the Major? Of course his name would be in old Army Lists, but why was he down there leading so retired a life? He had hinted at some trouble. Then there was his child! Sweet, ladylike, with a charm and dignity that were strange in such a cottage as that. What was her great trouble? It was evidently mental, and her father was in ignorance, and attributed it to bodily infirmity; and that being so, she must have some secret hidden from him, possibly too from her father. So restful the minute before, now Clive Reed felt as if a hot iron had seared him, and he turned angrily on his couch. "What is it to me?" he said to himself. "She is like the rest of them-- pleasant to the eye and good for food, but once plucked, no more paradise. The old story! Pater in profound ignorance, and there is a lover. Well, I did not come here to play the spy upon Mademoiselle's love affairs. I have had my stab, and it has been sharp. I suppose now that I ought to turn cynic and look on. No; I am too busy even for that. I have my betrothed--my `White Virgin'--to whom I must be faithful. Hang the girl! why couldn't she go and cry at the bottom of the garden--top, I ought to say--or down by the river, and not where I could hear her? Mademoiselle Dinah Gurdon, you and I will never be friends, but I like the old man, and I should like to know what his secret has been. Has no faith in the mine, hasn't he? `Don't trust it, young man'--`Don't place all your eggs in one basket.' I suppose he thinks I am a regular employe. Well, I look it, coming fresh out of it covered with limestone mud. Well meant, old gentleman, and I like you all the better for it. I know that you are not civil to me because I happen to be well off, and don't ask me here because I might prove to be an eligible party for your daughter." "Rubbish!" he muttered; "don't be an idiot. If I thought that, I'd stay away. But it is not that. The old man is a thorough gentleman, and the girl is ladylike and nice enough." She proved to be nice enough to make Clive Reed lie wakeful still, with his mind running upon her pale, care-marked face, and begin to wonder who the man might be who troubled her rest. "Some one at a distance," he thought; "and the fellow doesn't write. That's it. Poor lassie! These women do not monopolise all the deception. It is on the other side here. Little Phyllis is left neglected in this out-of-the-way place, quite forgotten perhaps, while Corydon has gone up to London, and plunged into all the gaieties of life--and so the world runs on." Suddenly it struck him that there was a photograph over the mantelpiece of a fine, handsome fellow in undress uniform. He noted it when he came into the room, but thought no more of it. Now it came strongly to his mind, and suggested a fresh train of thought.