“How wonderful it all is!” That was his exclamation, not hers. She was unusually silent, but was glad of the tea when it came, ministering to him and spreading the jam on the bread and butter. “Let me do it.” “No,” she answered. When she drew her veil up a little way to drink her tea one could see that her lips were a little tremulous, not as pink as usual. Gabriel, however, was too supremely happy and content to notice anything. He poured out all his news, all that had happened since she left, little things, chiefly details of paper and paint and the protection of their property from her father and stepmother’s destructive generosity. “It will be all right. I had a chat with Travers.” Travers was the foreman of the painters. “He will do nothing but with direct orders from us. The concrete in the basement won’t affect the general appearance, we can put back the old boards over it. But I think that might be a mistake although the boards are very interesting, about four times as thick as the modern ones, worm or rat eaten through. They will make the pipes for the bath as little obtrusive as possible. The electric wire casings will go behind the ceiling mouldings. They are not really mouldings, but carved wood, fallen to pieces in many places. But I am having them replaced. Margaret, are you listening?” She had been. But some one had come out of the hotel. Far off as they were she heard that turkey gobble and impedimented speech. “You can tell Dr. Kennedy that I would not wait any longer. Tell him I have gone straight up to Carbies. I shall see Mrs. Capel.” “The lady from Carbies is here, ma’am; having tea on the terrace, that’s her carriage.” Gabriel had not heard, he was so intent on Margaret and his news. The sea was breaking on the shingle, and to that sound, so agreeable to him, he was also listening idly, in the intervals of his talk. The strange voice in the distance escaped him. The familiar impediment was not familiar to him. Margaret was cold in the innermost centre of her unevenly beating heart. “Are you listening?” he asked her, and the face she turned on him was white through the obscuring veil. “I am listening, Gabriel.” “I will go down and speak to her,” Mrs. Roope was saying to the waiter. “No, you need not go in advance.” Margaret’s heart stood still, the space of a second, and then thundered on, irregularly. She had no plan ready, her quick brain was numbed. “Mrs. Capel!” Gabriel looked up and saw a tall woman conspicuously dressed as nun or nursing sister, in blue flowing cloak and bonnet. A woman with irregular features, large nose and coarse complexion. When she had said “Mrs. Capel” Margaret cringed, a shiver went through her, she seemed to shrink into the corner of the chair. “You know me. I wrote to Dr. Kennedy Wednesday and the letter required an immediate answer. Now I’ve come for it.” “He went up to London to see you,” she got out. “I shall have to be sure you are telling me the truth.”