feel at his case, and that Fanny and Jill—­(who were just old enough to come to dinner in white high-necked frocks that came down to their very slender ankles, and thick pig-tails down their backs)—­must not be allowed to bother him.  Mrs. Kirkby said, “Yes, I understand,” about a hundred and thirty times, and glanced at the clock.  She stood with one finger on the electric button for at least five minutes before venturing to ring for her maid, and it was only that lady’s discreet tap at one minute before eight that finally got Jack out of the room.  He looked in on Frank in the middle of his dressing, found to his relief that an oldish suit of dress-clothes fitted him quite decently, and then went to put on his own.  He came down to the drawing-room seven minutes after the gong with his ears very red and his hair in a plume, to find Frank talking to his mother, and eyed by his sisters who were pretending to look at photographs, with all the ease in the world.

But dinner itself was difficult.  It was the obvious thing to talk about Frank’s “walking-tour”; and yet this was exactly what Jack dared not do.  The state of the moors, and the deplorable ravages made among the young grouse by the early rains, occupied them all to the end of fish; to the grouse succeeded the bullocks:  to the bullocks, the sheep, and, by an obvious connection—­obvious to all who knew that gentleman—­from the sheep to the new curate.

But just before the chocolate soufflee there came a pause, and Jill, the younger of the two sisters, hastened to fill the gap.

“Did you have a nice walking-tour, Mr. Guiseley?”

Frank turned to her politely.

“Yes, very nice, considering,” he said.

“Have you been alone all the time?” pursued Jill, conscious of a social success.

“Well, no,” said Frank.  “I was traveling with a ... well, with a man who was an officer in the army.  He was a major.”

“And did you—­”

“That’s enough, Jill,” said her mother decidedly.  “Don’t bother Mr. Guiseley.  He’s tired with his walk.”

The two young men sat quiet for a minute or two after the ladies had left the room.  Then Jack spoke.

“Well?” he said.

Frank looked up.  There was an odd, patient kind of look in his eyes that touched Jack a good deal.  Frank had not been distinguished for submissiveness hitherto.

“Oh! a bit later, if you don’t mind,” he said.  “We can talk in the smoking-room.”

(IV)

“Well, I’ll tell you the whole thing as far as I understand it,” began Frank, as the door closed behind Jackson, who had brought whisky and candles.  “And then I’ll answer any questions you want.”