“We all got into the train when it came up,” explained Janet calmly, “hoping to the last that you would come before it started; it must have been some minutes in the station. Mamma was vexed with us for coming on, but of course we all knew you were safe; your telegram got here before we did.” “Where is Lady Mactavish?” asked Evereld. “She has gone down to Montreux to lunch with Lady Mount Pleasant, who by the bye has invited us all to go to-morrow to her picnic at a place near the Rochers de Nave.” Just at that moment Sir Matthew and Mr. Bruce Wylie joined them. There was something unusual in her guardian’s manner, and Evereld wondered what had brought the cloud to his brow. It did not disappear at all when he greeted her, and had it not been for a talkative German doctor, who conversed learnedly with Janet, their party would have been an uncomfortably silent one throughout the meal. “I want a few words with you, my dear,” said Sir Matthew, when at last lunch was over. “Come with me to our own sitting-room. We shall not be interrupted there.” Evereld’s heart sank. “Mr. Wylie has told of his proposal to me,” she reflected. “And Sir Matthew is vexed with me for refusing his friend.” “Sit down,” said Sir Matthew, motioning her to a sofa beside the window, and wheeling up a ponderous armchair for himself. “I have, of course, heard from Mr. Wylie of your very surprising behaviour yesterday. Are you aware that you have refused one of the best and cleverest of men, a man too who has been encouraged by you for the last month.” “Oh, no,” cried Evereld. “Indeed I never dreamt of encouraging him. How could I be supposed to think of a man thirty years older than I am as a lover?” “I don’t know what you thought about it, my dear, but you did distinctly encourage him. And everyone here, and at Zermatt, too, I believe, considered it a case.” “I am very sorry if they thought so, but it was a ridiculous mistake. I should never dream of marrying Mr. Wylie. He is just a friend and nothing more.” “I have no patience with this foolish talk about friends,” said Sir Matthew. “You ought to know enough of the world to realise that it never puts faith in friendships between men and women.” “Can I not be friends with an elderly man like that? a man of nearly fifty, who has known me since I was a child?” said Evereld questioningly. “No, you cannot,” said Sir Matthew decidedly. “You have encouraged him all these weeks, and you must marry him.” The tone of decision would, he thought, at once silence this gentle little girl with her innocent blue eyes. He received an uncomfortable shock when she quietly replied: “Of course, if it is really so I can avoid Mr. Wylie in future. But marry him I will not.” “What possible objection can you have to him?” said her guardian irritably. “I can tell you, he is a man that most girls would be proud to accept.” “But I do not love him,” said Evereld.