Lady Arbuthnot flushed up to the eyes. 'Really, Lesley! you pass bounds! You speak as if I wanted to--to clutch at Mr. Raymond, when I should only be too glad if---- However, as you say, my apology is a triviality. Sir George shall----' 'Sir George!' echoed Lesley in her turn, shaking her head. 'No! he is not one of those who ought to know that you know, either. He may have to know, perhaps, but it should not be through you. Look! how he _will_ give the credit to Mr. Kenyon; and if he knew it was Mr. Raymond, he would insist still more on giving it to him. You know he would, Lady Arbuthnot--there would be a fuss, and every one would talk, and he would hate it--almost worse than Mr. Raymond. Why not leave it alone--if we can--what harm does it do?' 'You have grown very wise, Lesley,' said the elder woman after a pause. 'Love, they say, has eyes----' 'Love!' Lesley flashed round on her like a whirlwind. 'Ah! I wish there was no such thing in the world. Then we women would have a chance of being sensible. Love! No, Lady Arbuthnot, love has nothing to do with it---nothing.' They stood facing each other, those two, and then a smile--distinctly a pleased smile--came to the older face. 'But, my dear child, you don't mean to tell _me_ that you are not in love with Mr. Raymond!' The flush up to the eyes was Lesley's now; but she stood her ground bravely. 'It does not matter if I am or not; I am not going to talk of it. And I promised him----' Grace broke in with a little peal of laughter, tender, amused, pathetic, yet acquiescent laughter. 'Has it got so far as that? Ah! Lesley dear! I'm so glad.' The girl looked at her with a faint wonder, a great admiration, then shook her head. 'I believe you are made different from me,' she said soberly. 'I can only understand one thing about it all--how it was that _he_ never forgot--well, never quite forgot. For there is nothing to be glad of, I can assure you--nothing at all.' She did not, in truth, look as if there was; but Grace, as she took Sir George his tea, as she always did, had her eyes full of that mysterious gladness which any sentiment, even sorrow, brings to some women's faces. It suited hers, and so her husband's had quite a lover-like diffidence in it as he watched her fingering the thin gold chain with pink topazes hanging from it, which he took from a drawer. 'It was in that casket the police found,' he explained, 'and I told them, if no owner turned up for it, to send it for you to see, and then if you liked it----' She looked up, smiling. 'It is too young for me. Yes! it is true, George, I am getting old--ever so old! But I'll tell you what we will do! If we can buy it, we will give it to Lesley as a wedding-present when she marries Mr. Raymond.' Sir George sat back in his chair--perhaps she had meant that he should. 'My dear girl!' he said feebly, 'this is the first I have heard of it. Mr. Raymond! And I thought----'