McVay caught his arm when she had passed them by, and whispered glibly: “Thought it was better to wait until she had had something to eat—shock on an empty stomach, so bad—so hard to bear.” Geoffrey shook his arm free. “You infernal coward,” he whispered back. “Well, I like that,” retorted McVay, “you didn’t tell her yourself when you had the chance.” “It wasn’t my affair. I did not tell her because—” “Oh, I know,” McVay interrupted with a chuckle. “I’ve been knowing why for the last ten minutes.” They followed her into the dining-room. It was not a sumptuous repast to which they sat down, but Geoffrey asked nothing better. He was sitting opposite to her,—a position evidently decreed him by Fate from the beginning of time. He could look at her, and now and then, in spite of her delicious reluctance, could force her to meet his eyes. When this happened, nothing was ever more apparent than that, for both of them, a momentous event had occurred. She was almost completely silent, and as for him, his responses to the general conversation which McVay kept attempting to set up, were so entirely mechanical that he was scarcely aware of them himself. It was she who suddenly remembered that it was Christmas day. “And _this_ is our Christmas dinner,” observed McVay regretfully. “Oh, no,” returned the girl, “this is luncheon. I’ll cook your dinner. You’ll see.” There was a pause. Geoffrey looked at McVay. The moment for disillusioning her had manifestly come. Wherever they might next meet it would not be at his dinner table. A hateful vision of a criminal court rose before him. “Miss McVay,” he said gravely, indifferent to the signals of warning which the other man was directing toward him; “we shall not be here at dinner. Your brother will tell you my reasons for wishing to start down the mountain.” “Now?” “At once.” She coloured slowly and deeply,—the only evidence of anger. “I do not need any other reason than your wish that we should go,” she said, rising. “I should thank you for having borne with us so long.” “Upon my word, Holland, it is madness to start as late as this,” said McVay. “It will be dark in an hour.” She turned on her brother quickly: “Please say no more about the matter, Billy,” she said. “We will start at once.” “You won’t start if it means certainly freezing to death,” he remonstrated. She flashed a glance at Geoffrey, who had also risen and was trying to compel the truth from McVay by a stern, steady glance. “I _would_,” she answered and shut the door behind her. McVay sprang up and was about to follow her when Geoffrey stopped him. “One moment,” he said, “you are quite right. It is too late to start to-night. We must stay here until to-morrow. But if we are to spend a night here without your sister’s being told—” “My dear Holland, think of her position, if we did tell her!” “I grant that the information had better be withheld until just as we are starting, but in that case I must—”