"I'll come and see if they've fixed you up all right," said Drayton, following his companion towards the new tent that had been pitched at some little distance from the large one. "We shall see you at dinner then?" Mrs. Drayton observed in reply to Broomhurst's smile as they parted. She entered the tent slowly, and moving up to the table, already laid for dinner, began to rearrange the things upon it in a purposeless mechanical fashion. After a moment she sank down upon a seat opposite the open entrance, and put her hand to her head. "What is the matter with me?" she thought wearily. "All the week I've been looking forward to seeing this man--_any_ man, _any one_ to take off the edge of this." She shuddered. Even in thought she hesitated to analyse the feeling that possessed her. "Well, he's here, and I think I feel _worse_." Her eyes travelled towards the hills she had been used to watch at this hour, and rested on them with a vague unseeing gaze. "Tired, Kathie? A penny for your thoughts, my dear," said her husband, coming in presently to find her still sitting there. "I'm thinking what a curious world this is, and what an ironical vein of humour the gods who look after it must possess," she replied with a mirthless laugh, rising as she spoke. John looked puzzled. "Funny my having known Broomhurst before, you mean?" he said doubtfully. * * * * * "I was fishing down at Lynmouth this time last year," Broomhurst said at dinner. "You know Lynmouth, Mrs. Drayton? Do you never imagine you hear the gurgling of the stream? I am tantalised already by the sound of it rushing through the beautiful green gloom of those woods--_aren't_ they lovely? And _I_ haven't been in this burnt-up spot as many hours as you've had months of it." She smiled a little. "You must learn to possess your soul in patience," she said, and glanced inconsequently from Broomhurst to her husband, and then dropped her eyes and was silent a moment. John was obviously, and a little audibly, enjoying his dinner. He sat with his chair pushed close to the table, and his elbows awkwardly raised, swallowing his soup in gulps. He grasped his spoon tightly in his bony hand so that its swollen joints stood out larger and uglier than ever, his wife thought. Her eyes wandered to Broomhurst's hands. They were well shaped, and though not small, there was a look of refinement about them; he had a way of touching things delicately, a little lingeringly, she noticed. There was an air of distinction about his clear-cut, clean-shaven face, possibly intensified by contrast with Drayton's blurred features; and it was, perhaps, also by contrast with the grey cuffs that showed beneath John's ill-cut drab suit that the linen Broomhurst wore seemed to her particularly spotless. Broomhurst's thoughts, for his part, were a good deal occupied with his hostess.