"Thank goodness, that's over!" said Mina snappishly, as she stepped out into the garden, followed by Mr Neeld. The rest went off to see the treasures of the Long Gallery. Mina turned to him with a quick question: "You saw Mr Tristram, how is he?" "Harry Tristram is quite well and in very good spirits. I never saw a man better in my life." Mina was silent for a moment. Then she broke out: "I call it disgusting. He's in good spirits, and she's in good spirits, and--and there's an end of it, I suppose! The next thing will be----" "It's not the end if there's a next thing," Neeld suggested timidly. "Oh, don't be tiresome. The next thing'll be some stupid girl for him and some idiot of a man for her. How I wish I'd never come to Merrion!" "Don't despair; things may turn out better than you think." "They can't," she declared fretfully. "I shall go away." "What a pity! Miss Gainsborough--Lady Tristram, I mean--will miss you so much." "Let her!" said the Imp ungraciously. "I've put myself out enough about the Tristrams." Neeld forbore to remind her of the entirely voluntary nature of her sacrifices; after all he was not the man to throw stones on that account. "Wait a few days anyhow," he urged her. In a few days something must happen. "A few days? Oh, yes!" As a matter of fact she meant to stay all the winter. "She's started," she went on, with an irritated jerk of her head toward the Long Gallery, "putting all the things in different places and rearranging everything." "I should imagine that Mr Gainsborough's enjoying himself then?" "She doesn't let him touch a thing," replied Mina with a fleeting smile. "He just stands about with a duster. That contents him well enough, though. Oh, yes, I shall go. The Broadleys won't care about me, and Cecily won't want me long." Neeld could give real comfort only at the price of indiscretion. Moreover he was not at all sure that a disclosure of the truth would bring any comfort, for Mina wanted to be on both sides and to harmonize devotion to Cecily with zeal for Harry. Neeld did not quite see how this was to be done, since it was understood that as Harry would take nothing from Cecily, so Cecily would refuse anything from Harry. "We must wait and see how it all turns out," said he. "I hate people who say that," grumbled Mina disconsolately. "And I do think that the Ivers have grown extraordinarily stupid--caught it from Bob Broadley, I suppose." When injustice springs not from judgment but from temper, it is not worth arguing against. Neeld held his tongue and they sat silent on the seat by the river, looking across to Merrion and hearing the voices of their friends through the open windows of the Long Gallery. Presently there came to them through the stillness of the night the sound of wheels, not on the Blentmouth side, but up the valley, on the Mingham and Fillingford road. The sound ceased without the appearance of any vehicle, but it had reminded Neeld of the progress of time.