However, there was Lady Ancester's romance, told to account for the languid intercourse between the Castle and Pensham Steynes, and the non-recognition of one another by Gwen and the Man in the Park. Miss Dickenson added a rider to the effect that she could quite understand the position. It would be a matter of mutual tacit consent, tempered down by formal calls enough to allay local gossip. "I think Miss Torrens has stopped," said she collaterally; you know how one speaks collaterally? "Shall we walk towards the house?" Then the Hon. Percival made a speech he half repented of later; _videlicet_, when he woke next morning. It became the fulcrum, as it were, of an inexplicable misgiving that Miss Dickenson would be bearing the light worse than ever when he saw her at breakfast. The speech was:--"It's very nice out here. One can hear the Don at Covent Garden. Besides ... one can hear out here just as well." This must have been taken to mean that two could. For the lady's truncated reply was:--"Till you've finished your cigar, then!" Combustion was lip-close when the cigar-end was thrown away. The reader of this story may be able to understand a thing its writer can only record without understanding--the fact that this gentleman felt grateful to the fine moonlight night, now nearly a _fait-accompli_, for enhancing this lady's white silk, which favoured a pretence that she was only reasonably _passee_, and enabled him to reflect upon the contour of her throat without interruption from its skin. For it had a contour by moonlight. Well!--sufficient to the day is the evil thereof; daylight might have its say to-morrow. Consider the clock put back a dozen years! * * * * * "Oh yes, he's asleep still, but I've seen him--looked in on my way down. Do you know, I really believe he will be quite fit for the journey to-morrow. He's getting such a much better colour, and last night he seemed so much stronger." Thus the last comer to the morning-rally of breakfast claimants, in its ante-room, awaiting its herald. Miss Irene Torrens is a robust beauty with her brother's eyes. She has been with him constantly since she came with her father three weeks ago, and the two of them watched his every breath through the terrible day and night that followed. "Then perhaps he will let us see him," says Lady Gwen. "At last!"